Gritty Students Succeed in the Teacher Recruitment Examination: A Longitudinal Survey in a Japanese Teacher Training University

Abstract

Grit, which concerns perseverance and passion to achieve long-term goals, predicts success in a wide range of areas. As a preliminary step toward the application of grit in institutional research (IR), this study longitudinally analyzes the impact of individual differences regarding level of grit on results in teacher recruitment examinations. In this study, undergraduate students at a Japanese teacher-training university (N = 629) responded to a questionnaire survey. The results showed that students with higher grit were more likely to take the teacher recruitment exam, and also to pass the second part of this exam. This effect persisted even after controlling for self-control, a noncognitive skill that is strongly associated with goal achievement. It was also found that perseverance of effort and consistency of interest, which are subfactors of grit, had differing effects on the results of teacher recruitment exams, respectively: while consistency of interest had an effect on the probability of taking the teacher recruitment exam, perseverance of effort had an effect on the probability of passing the second part of the exam. We concluded that consideration of grit can help teacher-training universities resolve the issue of producing high numbers of high-quality teachers.