Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance - U.S. Department of ...

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Psychological Resources That Can Promote Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance
We turn now to the psychological resources within students that support their perseverance. Of
course, it is not all up to the student—learning environments need to be designed to teach and/or
promote these resources. Many of the principles discussed above about setting up productive
learning cultures target these resources within students, and we will explore specific
interventions in Chapter 4. In the following sections, we examine the three major categories of
psychological resources in the model—academic mindsets, effortful control, and strategies and
tactics.
Academic Mindsets
Academic mindsets are the psychological resources necessary for students to productively frame
themselves as learners, their learning environment, and their relationships to the learning
environment. These include beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, values, and ways of perceiving
oneself. Compelling evidence from a variety of sources suggests that mindsets can have a
powerful impact on academic performance in general, and in particular for how students behave
and perform in the face of challenge. For example, Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck (2007)
showed that teaching middle school students to have a “growth mindset”—the belief that
intelligence is malleable and grows with effort—had a significant positive impact on academic
achievement.
The research literature on academic mindsets can be divided into three main categories, parallel
to those that characterize supportive learning environments: (1) beliefs about competence, (2)
values and goals, and (3) beliefs about social connectedness and belonging. In our hypothesized
model in Exhibit 4, building on the work of Farrington et al. (2012), we represent mindsets
across each of these categories as first-person statements from the point of view of a student.
Here we discuss the commonsense notions that each of these beliefs represent and the
availability of research to back its importance. For more detail, see recent literature reviews that
have examined the relationships between mindset and academic performance (e.g., Dweck et al.,
2011; Yeager & Walton, 2011; Snipes et al., 2012; Farrington et al., 2012).
• I can succeed at this. When students have strong self-efficacy (belief in their ability to learn
and perform well) and high expectations for success, they are more likely to persevere in the
face of challenge (e.g., Bandura, 1997; Schunk & Pajares, 2009). These beliefs can be
stronger predictors of success than measured levels of actual ability and prior performance.
• My ability and competence grow with my effort. Beliefs about ability and expectations for
success can be fragile, especially when students face a new challenge they have never
encountered before. Research by Dweck and colleagues points to the importance of a
“growth mindset,” the belief that ability is malleable and can be increased with effort and
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