An Examination of School Social Factors Related to Academic Grit

Abstract

There is growing research on traits and motivation that explore the non-cognitive factors that are found in high achieving individuals. There has been limited research on the school factors that develop grit in students. Through a non-experimental, cross-sectional research, this study examined the perceptions of the teaching and learning environment to examine the relationships between self-reported grit and the three psychological needs identified by the Basic Psychological Needs Theory of autonomy support, competence support, and relational support. The purpose was to measure student attitudes and perceptions to the teaching and learning environment and assess the connections with self-reported levels of grit. The study found that when analyzed individually, autonomy supportive instruction showed the strongest effect (β=.49, p<.001), followed by competence support (β=.46, p<.001) and student trust in teachers had a slightly weaker effect (β=.39, p=.002). When the variables were entered as a group, autonomy supportive instruction had the strongest effect on grit (β=.38, p<.001), followed by competence supportive instruction (β=.20, p<.001) and student teacher trust had a small negative effect (β=-.04) and was not statistically significant.