Examining mindset and grit in concurrent and future reading comprehension: A twin study.

Abstract

Noncognitive factors have gained attention in recent years as potential intervention targets for academic achievement improvement in students. Two notable facets, intelligence mindset and grit, have been of particular interest. Both have been shown to consistently improve educational outcomes, although little work has focused on reading ability. As such, we examined the relation between both grit and mindset on current, future, and change in reading comprehension ability in a twin sample. We used data from 422 twin pairs (171 monozygotic pairs, 251 dizygotic pairs) drawn from the Florida Twin Project on Reading, Behavior and Environment (Taylor et al., 2019). The racial composition of the sample included 1.00% American Indian or Alaska Native, 2.25% Asian, 13.25% Black or African American, 22.63% Hispanic, 1.00% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, 56.13% White, and 3.75% more than 1 race. The household income of the sample at time 1 was 16.15% below $25,000, 18.06% $25,000–49,999, 36.34% $50,000–99,999, and 29.45% $100,000 or more and closely align with the overall composition reported for the state of Florida (United States Census Bureau, 2021). Twins were on average 13 years old when the questionnaire and first reading ability measure were collected, and on average 15 years old when the second reading ability measure was collected. Weak and moderate positive correlations were found between both mindset and grit and with each reading ability score and neither were significantly related to change in reading ability. Twin modeling suggested little to no common genetic or environmental influences between mindset and grit to reading ability. In total, our results do not lend support to the notion of mindset or grit being a mechanism of change for reading ability.

Self‐control and grit are associated with school performance mainly because of shared genetic effects

“…This may imply that the environmental effects do not originate in aspects of the rearing environment that are likely to be shared, such as parental upbringing or parental style, but experiences unique to each sibling, stemming from, for instance, illness, different friends, and stochastic influences (Tikhodeyev & Shcherbakova, 2019;Willems et al, 2019). The heritability of grit has been estimated at 35%-61%, and like self-control, grit shows no evidence of shared environmental effects (Martinez et al, 2022;Rimfeld et al, 2016;Tucker-Drob et al, 2016). Martinez et al (2022) investigated grit and mindset in relation to reading comprehension in 422 thirteen-and fifteen-year-old twin pairs.…”

Self-control and grit are associated with school performance mainly because of shared genetic effects

“…Finding that individual differences in school performance can to a large extent be predicted by the genetic components of self-control and grit does not mean that these skills are immutable, but reflects that children who are performing well in school oftentimes also are genetically predisposed to be grittier and to have more self-control. In popular science, cognitive skills like IQ are sometimes thought of as innate talents that are difficult to change, while noncognitive skills are thought of as malleable skills that can be nurtured and taught to students (Chang, 2014;Martinez et al, 2022;Sokolowski & Ansari, 2018). Although findings from our and other heritability studies do not speak to trainability, they do show that cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills are both substantial and similarly heritable, refuting this popular distinction.…”

“…The heritability of grit has been estimated at 35-61%, and like self-control, grit shows no evidence of shared environmental effects (Martinez, Holden, Hart, & Taylor, 2022;Rimfeld et al, 2016;Tucker-Drob, Briley, Engelhardt, Mann, & Harden, 2016). Martinez et al (2022) investigated grit and mindset in relation to reading comprehension in 422 thirteen-and fifteen-year-old twin pairs. Individuals can hold the belief that intelligence is mainly a fixed inborn trait (fixed mindset) or a malleable trait given effort and time (growth mindset).…”

“…This may imply that the environmental effects do not originate in aspects of the rearing environment that are likely to be shared, such as parental upbringing or parental style, but experiences unique to each sibling, stemming from, for instance, illness, different friends, and stochastic influences (Tikhodeyev & Shcherbakova, 2019;Willems et al, 2019). The heritability of grit has been estimated at 35-61%, and like self-control, grit shows no evidence of shared environmental effects (Martinez, Holden, Hart, & Taylor, 2022;Rimfeld et al, 2016;Tucker-Drob, Briley, Engelhardt, Mann, & Harden, 2016). Martinez et al (2022) investigated grit and mindset in relation to reading comprehension in 422 thirteen-and fifteen-year-old twin pairs.…”

“…Individuals can hold the belief that intelligence is mainly a fixed inborn trait (fixed mindset) or a malleable trait given effort and time (growth mindset). Grit and mindset were correlated with reading ability, but mindset and grit were not associated with the change in reading ability over time (Martinez et al, 2022). In a review, Malanchini, Rimfeld, Allegrini, Ritchie, and Plomin (2020) concluded that non-cognitive abilities explained genetic variance in academic performance above and beyond cognitive ability.…”