Grit has been presented as a higher order personality trait that is highly predictive of both success and performance and distinct from other traits such as conscientiousness. This paper provides a meta-analytic review of the grit literature with a particular focus on the structure of grit and the relation between grit and performance, retention, conscientiousness, cognitive ability, and demographic variables. Our results based on 584 effect sizes from 88 independent samples representing 66,807 individuals indicate that the higher order structure of grit is not confirmed, that grit is only moderately correlated with performance and retention, and that grit is very strongly correlated with conscientiousness. We also find that the perseverance of effort facet has significantly stronger criterion validities than the consistency of interest facet and that perseverance of effort explains variance in academic performance even after controlling for conscientiousness. In aggregate our results suggest that interventions designed to enhance grit may only have weak effects on performance and success, that the construct validity of grit is in question, and that the primary utility of the grit construct may lie in the perseverance facet. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Claiming that high levels of an independent variable represent a necessary-but-not-sufficient condition for an outcome suggests that the outcome is only possible -but not guaranteed -with high levels of that variable. Necessary condition analysis (NCA) allows researchers to determine if an observed relation between an independent variable and a dependent variable is consistent with such a necessary-but-notsufficient relation. Using both archival and primary data, we apply Dul's ( 2016) necessary condition analysis techniques to common correlates of academic success in college. We find data patterns that are consistent with necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions for academic success for a variety of variables including class attendance, grit-perseverance, growth mindset, prior achievement, and admissions test scores. Our findings imply that some individual characteristics and behaviors may constrain the level of grades possible in college and that researchers may benefit from considering necessity models of academic performance. We discuss further applications of necessary condition analysis in educational research as a supplement to traditional data analysis.

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