Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students

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,...

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Main Authors:	Santos, Indhira, Petroska-Beska, Violeta, Carneiro, Pedro, Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren, Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria, Berniell, Ines, Krekel, Christian, Arias, Omar, Duckworth, Angela
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:	EDUCATION SECONDARY EDUCATION DISADVANTAGED GROUPS METACOGNITION RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/609711635857388920/Can-Grit-Be-Taught-Lessons-from-a-Nationwide-Field-Experiment-with-Middle-School-Students http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36482

id	okr-10986-36482
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-364822021-11-05T05:10:44Z Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students Santos, Indhira Petroska-Beska, Violeta Carneiro, Pedro Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria Berniell, Ines Krekel, Christian Arias, Omar Duckworth, Angela EDUCATION SECONDARY EDUCATION DISADVANTAGED GROUPS METACOGNITION RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS 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. 2021-11-04T16:57:41Z 2021-11-04T16:57:41Z 2021-11 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/609711635857388920/Can-Grit-Be-Taught-Lessons-from-a-Nationwide-Field-Experiment-with-Middle-School-Students http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36482 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9831 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Europe and Central Asia North Macedonia (Formerly the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	EDUCATION SECONDARY EDUCATION DISADVANTAGED GROUPS METACOGNITION RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS
spellingShingle	EDUCATION SECONDARY EDUCATION DISADVANTAGED GROUPS METACOGNITION RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIALS Santos, Indhira Petroska-Beska, Violeta Carneiro, Pedro Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria Berniell, Ines Krekel, Christian Arias, Omar Duckworth, Angela Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
geographic_facet	Europe and Central Asia North Macedonia (Formerly the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia)
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9831
description	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.
format	Working Paper
author	Santos, Indhira Petroska-Beska, Violeta Carneiro, Pedro Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria Berniell, Ines Krekel, Christian Arias, Omar Duckworth, Angela
author_facet	Santos, Indhira Petroska-Beska, Violeta Carneiro, Pedro Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren Munoz Boudet, Ana Maria Berniell, Ines Krekel, Christian Arias, Omar Duckworth, Angela
author_sort	Santos, Indhira
title	Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
title_short	Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
title_full	Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
title_fullStr	Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
title_full_unstemmed	Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
title_sort	can grit be taught? lessons from a nationwide field experiment with middle-school students
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2021
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/609711635857388920/Can-Grit-Be-Taught-Lessons-from-a-Nationwide-Field-Experiment-with-Middle-School-Students http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36482
_version_	1764485340130705408

Can Grit Be Taught? Lessons from a Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students

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