Operational Definition: What is Persistence?

Many educators recognize the importance of students’ responses to challenging situations. Students who maintain or even increase their effort when problems arise are likely to be successful in a variety of situations. This tendency is the focus of Persistence in the ISSAQ framework.

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Persistence is related to several other theoretical models of student behavior. Perhaps most notably, “grit” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly; 2007) has received significant attention among researchers and practitioners as an intuitive paradigm of student success. Duckworth et al. define grit in the following way:

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"We define grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina. Whereas disappointment or boredom signals to others that it is time to change trajectory and cut losses, the gritty individual stays the course."

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While this definition contains several attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors, ISSAQ focus on the maintenance of effort in the face of challenges as a singular tendency, based on its inclusion as part of conscientiousness (Goldberg, 1990), which has been shown to predict student success in meta-analytic studies (e.g., O’Connor & Paunonen, 2007; Poropat, 2009). Indeed, the high correlation between grit and factors such as conscientiousness and persistence has been a frequent criticism of the construct (Credé et al., 2017; Meunks et al., 2017).

 

Empirical Relationship to Success (Does it Predict Student Success?)

In addition to meta-analytic studies that have related conscientiousness - the global personality domain that includes Persistence - to student success (e.g., O’Connor & Paunonen, 2007; Poropat, 2009), several studies have examined the predictive power of Persistence in and of itself.

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For example, Credé et al. (2017) and Meunks et a. (2017) considered “grit” as two seperate dimensions: perseverance of effort and consistency of interest. Both studies found perseverance of effort to be the sole significant predictor of academic success (i.e., course grade and end-of-semester GPA).

 

Eskreis-Winkler et al. (2014) found grit to be a significant predictor of persistence behavior in military, professional, and secondary settings, though the study did not examine postsecondary samples. Lastly, a meta-analysis by Richardson, Abraham, & Bond (2012) found “effort regulation,” which they defined as “persistence and effort when faced with challenging academic situations” to be significantly predictive of GPA.

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Practical Relationship to Success

In addition to its intuitive appeal and relation to the grit literature, Persistence is also an important factor in a “growth mindset” approach (Dweck, 2007, 2008). Growth mindset is rooted in the idea that students acknowledge intelligence as malleable and a product of effort rather than innate ability. 

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Subsequently, when faced with a challenge, students with a growth mindset are likely to persist (“Oh, I must not have succeeded because I didn’t try hard enough!”) as opposed to students with a fixed mindset are more likely to give up (“Since my ability isn’t going to change, there’s no use trying again - I’ll just continue to fail.”).

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How do I help students improve in Persistence?