Angela Duckworth’s Research

Perkins-Gough, Deborah (2013). The Significance of Grit: A Conversation with Angela Lee Duckworth, Educational Leadership. For the last 11 years, Angela Lee Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania has been conducting ground breaking studies on "grit"–the quality that enables individuals to work hard and stick to their long-term passions and goals. In this interview with "Educational Leadership," Duckworth describes what her research has shown about the relationship between "grit" and achievement, and she reflects on the importance of helping students develop grit and other noncognitive traits. Duckworth explains "grit" is not just having resilience in the face of failure, but also having deep commitments that you remain loyal to over many years. If a student is trying to maximize their outcomes–they want to do as well as they possibly can–then there's no limit, ceiling, or threshold to their studies–that's "grit." Along with Carol Dweck, Duckworth is developing an intervention to look at making students aware of the value of deliberate practice–the kind of effortful practice that really improves skills.
Seider, Scott (2013). Effort Determines Success at Roxbury Prep, Phi Delta Kappan. A middle school in Boston designs its curriculum and culture–from its nightly homework assignments to its Powerful Speaking Extravaganza–upon a foundation of strengthening students' motivation and ability to do the hard work necessary to accomplish their goals. Roxbury Prep's emphasis on perseverance finds support in a robust body of education research. Studies of gifted children have found perseverance to be a stronger predictor than intelligence of success in adulthood, as has historical research on the trajectories of geniuses such as Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. Likewise, a number of scholars have found that a key commonality in high-achieving artists, athletes, chess players, and mathematicians is an ability and willingness to put in long hours of time and effort. Most recently, Angela Duckworth and colleagues found that an individual's grit and self-discipline are stronger predictors than IQ of success in populations ranging from urban middle school students to West Point cadets.
Socol, Ira (2014). Taking a Closer Look at the "Grit" Narratives, Knowledge Quest. In this article Ira Socol explores the pros and cons of Paul Tough's "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character." As Tough told Valerie Strauss, "The book is about two things: first, an emerging body of research that shows the importance of so-called non-cognitive skills in children's success; and second, a new set of experimental interventions that are trying to use that research to help improve outcomes for children, especially children growing up in disadvantage. Some of this research is decades old; some is very new. Part of what I'm trying to do in the book is to show the connections between fields of research that are generally kept quite separate, including various branches of economics, neuroscience, pediatrics, and psychology" (Strauss 2012). Socol asserts it is an important debunking of much of the so-called "research" behind the work of thirty-five years of "educational reformers," going back to the start of the Reagan Administration. And, he says, it's an important book because of its investigation of allostatic load [Allostatic load is the body's response to many kinds of stress] and what that concept requires of educators. But, Socol argues, it is a dangerous book because Tough continues to look for simple answers that will make life comfortable for his social class. It is a dangerous book because it never really asks tough questions. It is a dangerous book because it holds out those old New England Calvinist ideals–grit and hard work, the "by your own bootstraps" way to the top–as the path for the poor, without ever really acknowledging that the rich need none of that. Socol suggests that what children need is not "grit" but abundance–and slack. Herein he describes these concepts as they relate to "grit theory" and explores the impact that the works of Paul Thomas, Angela Duckworth, and Tough have on the discussion. He then addresses the origins of the myths of the Protestant Work Ethic and identity racism in the American power structure. Socol concludes by describing two examples of providing students with abundance in schools.
Hanushek, Erik A., Ed.; Machin, Stephen J., Ed.; Woessmann, Ludger, Ed. (2011). Handbook of the Economics of Education. Volume 4, Elsevier. What is the value of an education? Volume 4 of the Handbooks in the Economics of Education combines recent data with new methodologies to examine this and related questions from diverse perspectives. School choice and school competition, educator incentives, the college premium, and other considerations help make sense of the investments and returns associated with education. Volume editors Eric A. Hanushek (Stanford), Stephen Machin (University College London) and Ludger Woessmann (Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich) draw clear lines between newly emerging research on the economics of education and prior work. In conjunction with Volume 3, they measure people's current understanding of educational acquisition and its economic and social effects. This volume contains: (1) Personality Psychology and Economics (Mathilde Almlund, Angela L. Duckworth, James Heckman, and Tim Kautz); (2) Non-Production Benefits of Education: Crime, Health, and Good Citizenship (Lance Lochner); (3) Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market (Edwin Leuven and Hessel Oosterbeek); (4) Migration and Education (Christian Dustmann and Albrecht Glitz); (5) Inequality, Human Capital Formation and the Process of Development (Oded Galor); (6) The Design of Performance Pay in Education (Derek Neal); (7) Educational Vouchers in International Contexts (Eric Bettinger); (8) Dropouts and Diplomas: The Divergence in Collegiate Outcomes (John Bound and Sarah E. Turner); and (9) The Political Economy of Education Funding (Gerhard Glomm, B. Ravikumar, and Ioana C. Schiopu). [For related reports, see Volume 1 (ED527053), Volume 2 (ED527054), and Volume 3 (ED527055).]
Robertson-Kraft, Claire; Duckworth, Angela (2014). True Grit: Trait-Level Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals Predicts Effectiveness and Retention among Novice Teachers, Teachers College Record. Background/Context: Surprisingly little progress has been made in linking teacher effectiveness and retention to factors observable at the time of hire. The rigors of teaching, particularly in low-income school districts, suggest the importance of personal qualities that have so far been difficult to measure objectively. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: In this study, we examine the predictive validity of personal qualities not typically collected by school districts during the hiring process. Specifically, we use a psychological framework to explore how biographical data on grit, a disposition toward perseverance and passion for long-term goals, explains variance in novice teachers' effectiveness and retention. Research Design: In two prospective, longitudinal samples of novice teachers assigned to schools in low-income districts (N = 154 and N = 307, respectively), raters blind to outcomes followed a 7-point rubric to rate grit from information on college activities and work experience extracted from teachers' résumés. We used independent-samples, t-tests, and binary logistic regression models to predict teacher effectiveness and retention from these grit ratings as well as from other information (e.g., SAT scores, college GPA, and interview ratings of leadership potential) available at the time of hire. Conclusions/Recommendations: Grittier teachers outperformed their less gritty colleagues and were less likely to leave their classrooms midyear. Notably, no other variables in our analysis predicted either effectiveness or retention. These findings contribute to a better understanding of what leads some novice teachers to outperform others and remain committed to the profession. In addition to informing policy decisions surrounding teacher recruitment and development, this investigation highlights the potential of a psychological framework to explain why some individuals are more successful than others in meeting the rigorous demands of teaching.
Tsukayama, Eli; Duckworth, Angela Lee; Kim, Betty (2013). Domain-Specific Impulsivity in School-Age Children, Developmental Science. Impulsivity is a salient individual difference in children with well-established predictive validity for life outcomes. The current investigation proposes that impulsive behaviors vary systematically by domain. In a series of studies with ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples of middle school students, we find that schoolwork-related and interpersonal-related impulsivity, as observed by teachers, parents, and the students themselves, are distinct, moderately correlated behavioral tendencies. Each demonstrates differentiated relationships with dimensions of childhood temperament, Big Five personality factors, and outcomes, such as report card grades. Implications for theoretical conceptions of impulsivity as well as for practical applications (e.g. domain-specific interventions) are discussed.
Duckworth, Angela L. (2009). (Over and) beyond High-Stakes Testing, American Psychologist. Sackett, Borneman, and Connelly's article and recent meta-analyses (e.g., Kuncel & Hezlett, 2007) should lay to rest any doubt over whether high-stakes standardized tests predict important academic and professional outcomes–they do. The challenge now is to identify noncognitive individual differences that determine the same outcomes. Noncognitive is, of course, a misnomer. Every psychological process is cognitive in the sense of relying on the processing of information of some kind. Why do so many psychologists, including myself, resort to the term noncognitive despite its obvious inappropriateness?
Duckworth, Angela L.; Gendler, Tamar Szabó; Gross, James J. (2014). Self-Control in School-Age Children, Educational Psychologist. Conflicts between immediately rewarding activities and more enduringly valued goals abound in the lives of school-age children. Such conflicts call upon children to exercise self-control, a competence that depends in part on the mastery of metacognitive, prospective strategies. The "process model of self-control" organizes these strategies into five families corresponding to sequential phases in the process by which undesired and desired impulses lose or gather force over time. "Situation selection" and "situation modification" strategies involve choosing or changing physical or social circumstances. "Attentional deployment" and "cognitive change" strategies involve altering whether and how objective features of the situation are mentally represented. Finally, "response modulation" strategies involve the direct suppression or enhancement of impulses. The process model of self-control predicts that strategies deployed earlier in the process of impulse generation and regulation generally will be more effective than those deployed later. Implications of this self-control perspective for school-age children are considered.
Duckworth, Angela L.; Quinn, Patrick D.; Tsukayama, Eli (2012). What "No Child Left Behind" Leaves behind: The Roles of IQ and Self-Control in Predicting Standardized Achievement Test Scores and Report Card Grades, Journal of Educational Psychology. The increasing prominence of standardized testing to assess student learning motivated the current investigation. We propose that standardized achievement test scores assess competencies determined more by intelligence than by self-control, whereas report card grades assess competencies determined more by self-control than by intelligence. In particular, we suggest that intelligence helps students learn and solve problems independent of formal instruction, whereas self-control helps students study, complete homework, and behave positively in the classroom. Two longitudinal, prospective studies of middle school students support predictions from this model. In both samples, IQ predicted changes in standardized achievement test scores over time better than did self-control, whereas self-control predicted changes in report card grades over time better than did IQ. As expected, the effect of self-control on changes in report card grades was mediated in Study 2 by teacher ratings of homework completion and classroom conduct. In a third study, ratings of middle school teachers about the content and purpose of standardized achievement tests and report card grades were consistent with the proposed model. Implications for pedagogy and public policy are discussed.
MacCann, Carolyn; Duckworth, Angela Lee; Roberts, Richard D. (2009). Empirical Identification of the Major Facets of Conscientiousness, Learning and Individual Differences. Conscientiousness is often found to predict academic outcomes, but is defined differently by different models of personality. High school students (N = 291) completed a large number of Conscientiousness items from different models and the Big Five Inventory (BFI). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the items uncovered eight facets: Industriousness, Perfectionism, Tidiness, Procrastination Refrainment, Control, Cautiousness, Task Planning, and Perseverance. Correlations between these facets and the BFI revealed that all facets related strongly to Conscientiousness. Criterion-related validity was demonstrated by relationships between facets and academic outcomes such as grade-point-average, disciplinary infractions, and attainment of academic honors. Compared to BFI Conscientiousness, Industriousness and Perfectionism showed significantly stronger prediction of absenteeism and cognitive test scores, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of facet scores, the interpretation of personality scores for selection, and the development of intervention programs.
Duckworth, Angela Lee; Grant, Heidi; Loew, Benjamin; Oettingen, Gabriele; Gollwitzer, Peter M. (2011). Self-Regulation Strategies Improve Self-Discipline in Adolescents: Benefits of Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions, Educational Psychology. Adolescents struggle with setting and striving for goals that require sustained self-discipline. Research on adults indicates that goal commitment is enhanced by mental contrasting (MC), a strategy involving the cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality. Implementation intentions (II), which identify the action one will take when a goal-relevant opportunity arises, represent a strategy shown to increase goal attainment when commitment is high. This study tests the effect of mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions (MCII) on successful goal implementation in adolescents. Sixty-six 2nd-year high school students preparing to take a high-stakes exam in the fall of their third year were randomly assigned to complete either a 30-minute written mental contrasting with implementation intentions intervention or a placebo control writing exercise. Students in the intervention condition completed more than 60% more practice questions than did students in the control condition. These findings point to the utility of directly teaching to adolescents mental contrasting with implementation intentions as a self-regulatory strategy of successful goal pursuit.
Duckworth, Angela Lee; Seligman, Martin E. P. (2006). Self-Discipline Gives Girls the Edge: Gender in Self-Discipline, Grades, and Achievement Test Scores, Journal of Educational Psychology. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, girls earn higher grades than boys in all major subjects. Girls, however, do not out perform boys on achievement or IQ tests. To date, explanations for the underprediction of girls' GPAs by standardized tests have focused on gender differences favoring boys on such tests. The authors' investigation suggests an additional explanation: Girls are more self-disciplined, and this advantage is more relevant to report card grades than to achievement or aptitude tests. Eighth-grade girls at an urban magnet school were more self-disciplined than their male counterparts according to delay of gratification measures and self-report, teacher, and parent ratings. Whereas girls earned higher grades in all courses, they did only marginally better on an achievement test and worse on an IQ test. Mediation analyses suggested girls earned higher GPAs at least in part because they were more self-disciplined.
Borghans, Lex; Duckworth, Angela Lee; Heckman, James J.; ter Weel, Bas (2008). The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits, Journal of Human Resources. This paper explores the interface between personality psychology and economics. We examine the predictive power of personality and the stability of personality traits over the life cycle. We develop simple analytical frameworks for interpreting the evidence in personality psychology and suggest promising avenues for future research. The paper proceeds as follows. Section I is the Introduction. Section II defines cognitive ability and personality traits and describes how these concepts are measured. Section III considers methodological issues that arise in interpreting the measurements. Section IV presents evidence by psychologists and economists on basic economic parameters. Section V examines the predictive power of the traits studied by personality psychologists who, in general, are a distinct body of scholars from the psychologists measuring economic preference parameters. Section VI examines the evidence on the evolution of preference parameters and personality traits over the life cycle. We summarize recent work in psychology that demonstrates stability in preference parameters across diverse settings. Section VII presents a framework for interpreting personality and economic parameters. Recent work in behavioral economics and psychology that seeks to integrate economics and psychology focuses almost exclusively on preference parameters. In contrast, we present a broader framework that includes constraints, skill acquisition, and learning as well as conventional preference parameters. Section VIII concludes by summarizing the paper and suggesting an agenda for future research.