Examining the Predictive Validity of the Grit Scale-Short (Grit-S) Using Domain-General and Domain-Specific Approaches With Student-Athletes

Abstract

This paper contributes to the debate as to whether grit is best conceptualized and measured as a domain-specific or domain-general construct. In the field of sport psychology, grit has traditionally been conceptualized and measured as a domain-general construct, with the majority of studies using the Grit Scale-Short (Grit-S: Duckworth and Quinn, 2009) to assess grit and its relationships with an array of personality-, performance-, and health-related outcomes. To date, no studies have compared the predictive validity of domain-general and domain-specific versions of the Grit-S with athletes who operate in different achievement settings. In a sample of United Kingdom student-athletes (N = 326, 214 males, 112 females; Mage = 19.55 years, SD = 1.48 years), we examined the degree to which a domain-general version and two domain-specific versions of the Grit-S accounted for variance in two criterion variables that were either situated in an academic context (i.e., emotional exhaustion) or a sport context (i.e., competitive level). Results obtained from a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that an academic-version of the Grit-S explained unique variance in academic emotional exhaustion beyond the variance explained by the domain-general version of the scale, and a sport-version of the Grit-S explained unique variance in competitive level beyond the variance explained by the domain-general version. Results support the adoption of domain-specific approaches to measure grit in specific achievement contexts. Our findings highlight the need for researchers to carefully consider the measurement approaches they adopt when studying grit in individuals who operate across different achievement settings.

Investigate Relationship Between Grit, Coach Leadership Style with Sports Motivation and Athlete Satisfaction while Training After COVID-19

“…Instrument for assessing the level of grit is a grit scale that has been widely used in previous studies (Martínez-Moreno et al, 2021). The grit scale has 8 question items from 2 subscalaies namely Consistency of Interest (COI) consisting of four question items, for example "I often set goals but choose to pursue others" and Perseverance of Effort (POE) which also has four questions, For example "I am a hardworking athlete" (Rumbold et al, 2022). This instrument is assessed using a Likert scale from point 1 (not reflecting me at all) up to 7 (extremely reflecting me) (Frontini, Monteiro, Rodrigues, Matos & Antunes, 2022;Martínez-Moreno et al, 2021).…”

Academic Self-Concept Wins the Race: The Prediction of Achievements in Three Major School Subjects by Five Subject-Specific Self-Related Variables

“…Students' propensity to stick with a subject and continue to strive despite setbacks and obstacles is likely to depend on the perceived difficulty of a school subject and on prior learning experiences, which may vary from subject to subject. For grit with POE and COI, this domain specificity was only addressed a few years ago, mainly concerning language subjects and mathematics [102,[171][172][173][174][175][176][177], but also sports [178,179].…”

Sticking With It

“…Rost and Feng (2024) measured both PE and CI, each itemized separately for three core school subjects (math, foreign language English, and native language Chinese). Mosewich et al (2021) and Rumbold et al (2022) adapted grit to sports, and Alamer (2021), Cheng (2021), Schmidt et al (2018), Sudina et al (2021), and Teimouri et al. (2021) to language learning.…”