Abstract
Current measures of grit misrepresent its original conceptualization. This chapter aims to outline the flaws of extant grit measures, particularly in light of recent updated recommendations for maximizing construct validity during scale development. After reviewing empirical findings regarding grit’s construct validity, structure, and association with success outcomes, recommendations for the future development of grit will be proposed. Grit was developed as a higher-order construct consisting of two facets: perseverance of effort and consistency of interests. However, the higher order construct of “overall grit” is not supported by item response theory, factor analytic, or structural equation modeling approaches. Grit is currently better interpreted as two separate constructs, possibly within a bifactor model in which “overall grit” does not consist of perseverance and consistency. After controlling for conscientiousness, perseverance explains little incremental variance in success outcomes. However, perseverance may be related to, but distinct from, lower-order facets of conscientiousness. Consistency is much less associated with success outcomes, and its predictive utility is unclear.
Grit researchers would benefit from revising grit measures. Positively and negatively worded items should be used to capture both constructs. An overinclusive set of new items should be administered to heterogeneous samples before the scales are refined. Further structural analysis is recommended, and similar factor analytic, item response theory, and structural equation modeling techniques used for the original grit scale should be employed for any revised measure. Meaningful inferences about grit may only be drawn after such revisions, as the first conceptual iteration of grit is psychometrically unsatisfactory.
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Notes
- 1.
This item in particular has seemed to confuse some respondents because of its double negative wording in conjunction with additional negative terms in the response scale, e.g. “disagree,” resulting in low factors loadings and general model improvement if excluded or rewritten (Fosnacht et al., 2018; Tyumeneva et al., 2017). It may be prudent to assume this item in particular is inappropriate for samples with less education or a lower reading level than others. Revisions of the grit scale should avoid similar double-negative wording in the interest of ease for all respondents.
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Tynan, M.C. (2021). Deconstructing Grit’s Validity: The Case for Revising Grit Measures and Theory. 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_8
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