Abstract
This study aimed to examine the role that grit, along with conscientiousness, academic self-concept, other-based achievement goals, and competence expectancy, play in predicting Chinese university students’ math performance and subjective wellbeing (i.e., life satisfaction and positive and negative affect). Two hundred and thirty-four university students attended a three-session online survey in their mathematics classes, with their ages ranging from 17 to 24 (Mage = 18.77 and SD = 0.77) years old. The results showed that independently, grit-PE (perseverance of effort) and other psychosocial factors (i.e., other-approach goals, conscientiousness, academic self-concept, and competency expectancy) all made their significant contributions to math performance; grit-CI (consistency of interest), grit-PE, and other psychosocial variables (i.e., conscientiousness, academic self-concept, and competency expectancy) also had significant contributions to life satisfaction and positive affect. Simultaneously, when grit working with other psychosocial constructs in the model, only grit-CI and other-approach goals significantly contributed to math grades; grit-CI and grit-PE, conscientiousness, and academic self-concept significantly predicted life satisfaction; grit-CI and grit-PE and conscientiousness significantly predicted positive affect; and only other-approach goals significantly and positively contributed to negative affect. More importantly, when grit was entered into the hierarchical regression models in the last step, grit-CI and grit-PE still demonstrated their incremental validity in predicting life satisfaction and positive affect, as well as math grades (though grit-CI only), above and beyond those psychosocial constructs examined. The results indicate that the power of grit in explaining math grades and wellbeing may depend on which psychological constructs grit work together. In addition, the two components of grit are suggested to be examined separately considering their different roles in achievement-relevant and non-achievement-relevant outcomes.
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This research was supported in part by grants from the Research Institute of Moral Education at Nanjing Normal University, the Key Research Institute in Humanities and Social Sciences in Universities in China [No. DYS20170602].
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Chen, C., Gong, X. (2021). How Does Grit Compare to Other Psychosocial Factors in Predicting University Students’ Math Performance and Subjective Wellbeing?. In: van Zyl, L.E., Olckers, C., van der Vaart, L. (eds) Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Grit. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57389-8_3
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