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

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Some example measures. Teacher report emerged in our interviews as an important method for
measuring constructs around grit, tenacity, and perseverance. For example, KIPP and other
character education programs have been developing methods of using explicit teacher feedback
to help students gauge their level of grit with respect to specific criteria and to open up
conversations among parents, teachers, and students (see Chapter 4 for more details about these
models). These schools have been implementing a “Character Report Card” on which students
receive ratings pooled from multiple teachers on factors such as grit and self-control. Exhibit 9
illustrates what such a report card might look like. It is important that these ratings come from
multiple teachers, as they are then less susceptible to biases of particular relationships. KIPP has
been facilitating the use of these Report Cards with a technology called PowerTeacher that
allows teachers to input their ratings online. Informant reporting is also a common approach for
teachers, parents/guardians, and mental health professionals to assess the social-emotional
competencies that serve as protective factors associated with resilience in young children. For
example, the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA; LeBuffe, Shapiro & Naglieri,
2009) can be used for children in kindergarten through eighth grade (ages 5-­‐14). The DESSA is a
72-­‐item, standardized, norm-­‐referenced behavior rating scale that focuses on student strengths
and positive behaviors related to eight dimensions: self-­‐awareness, social awareness, self-­management,
goal-­‐directed behavior, relationship skills, personal responsibility, decision
making, and optimistic thinking. It can be used for screening, profiling for intervention, and
monitoring and measuring change (Hall, 2010).
While we did not find classroom observation protocols that measure grit, tenacity, or
perseverance per se for individual students, there are protocols that measure related constructs,
such as engagement. An example of a validated classroom observation protocol targeting
students’ engagement is presented by Skinner, Kindermann, and Furrer (2009). This protocol
examines elementary school students’ behavior, characterizing it as actively on-task, passively
on-task, or off-task. Such a measure could be used during challenging tasks to examine students’
perseverance.
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