Publication: Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
Date
2021-11
ISSN
Published
2021-11
Author(s)
Petroska-Beska, Violeta
Carneiro, Pedro
Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren
Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria
Berniell, Ines
Krekel, Christian
Arias, Omar
Duckworth, Angela
Abstract
This paper studies whether a
particular socio-emotional skill —grit (the ability to
sustain effort and interest toward long-term goals)—can be
cultivated and how this affects student learning. The paper
implements, as a randomized controlled trial, a nationwide
low-cost intervention designed to foster grit and
self-regulation among sixth and seventh grade students in
primary schools in North Macedonia (about 33,000 students
across 350 schools). Students exposed to the intervention
report improvements in self-regulation, in particular the
perseverance-of-effort facet of grit, relative to students
in a control condition. The impacts on students are larger
when both students and teachers are exposed to the
curriculum than when only students are treated. Among
disadvantaged students, the study also finds positive
impacts on grade point averages, with gains of up to 28
percent of a standard deviation one year post-treatment.
However, the findings also point toward a potential
downside: although the intervention made students more
perseverant and industrious, there is some evidence that it
may have reduced consistency in their interests over time.
Citation
“Santos, Indhira; Petroska-Beska, Violeta; Carneiro, Pedro; Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren; Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria; Berniell, Ines; Krekel, Christian; Arias, Omar; Duckworth, Angela. 2021. Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9831. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36482 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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