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The Relationship Between Students’ Grit and Mathematics Performance: The Mediational Role of Deep and Surface Learning Strategies

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Abstract

The present study focuses on Chinese students’ mathematics-specific grit and its relationship with students’ deep/surface strategies and mathematics achievement. A total of 926 students from secondary schools in China participated in this study. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that consistency of interest had a negative relationship with surface strategies. Perseverance of effort was a positive predictor of both deep and surface strategies. Consistency of interest, perseverance of effort, and deep strategies were positively related to mathematics performance, while students’ use of surface strategies had a negative relationship with mathematics achievement. The bootstrap analysis further confirmed the mediating role of learning strategies between grit and mathematics performance. An important finding is that perseverance of effort had double-edged effects on mathematics achievement, with a positive path via deep strategies and a negative path via surface strategies. Consistency of interest positively predicted mathematics performance via a negative relationship with surface strategies. This study provides a possible explanation of these findings from a sociocultural perspective.

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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2022M710418).

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Correspondence to Meng Guo.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Guo, M. The Relationship Between Students’ Grit and Mathematics Performance: The Mediational Role of Deep and Surface Learning Strategies. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 33, 373–381 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-023-00735-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-023-00735-z

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