Successful students: Smart or tough?

Abstract

Grit is defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. 5 As a trait, grit has been measured in the educational realm and the associated metric has shown to reliably predict a significant percent of student 'success'. This paper describes the initial work of an ongoing longitudinal study to measure the grit of first-year engineering students using a validated and established self-reporting survey tool.5 Preliminary results of the survey show that there are significant differences in grit scores among student cohorts of gender and student athletes; there are some measurable differences across academic levels and differences among engineering majors. Trends exist between Honors and Non-honors students, yet there is little correlation with SAT scores or absolute age at the university level. Our hypothesis is that students can be better set up for success if they possess more grit, more toughness and determination. While both grit and success may be challenging to define and measure by some standards, we anticipate this research will provide new insights and direction for continued efforts in cultivating the engineers of 2020. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.