Grit and conscientiousness: Another jangle fallacy
Ponnock, A., Muenks, K., Morell, M., Yang, J. S., Gladstone, J. R., & Wigfield, A. (2020). 'Grit and conscientiousness: Another jangle fallacy.' Journal of Research in Personality, 89, article 104021. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2020.104021. Tests the overlap at the item level rather than the scale level. 1,246 ninth and tenth graders, 45.7 per cent female, mean age 14.86, seven urban public and independent high schools in the north-eastern United States, with semester maths and science grades from school records. Latent correlations: perseverance with conscientiousness .87, consistency with conscientiousness .53, the two facets with each other .47. The bi-factor model in which the two grit facets form an overall grit factor 'did not converge, suggesting that the two grit factors (CI and PE) do not make up an overall grit construct', and the best-fitting models fused conscientiousness with one grit facet. Their conclusion: 'we conclude that grit as measured by the Grit-S is merely a relabeling of the conscientiousness construct that is already established in the literature, and thus a classic jangle fallacy.' Their recommendation: 'We suggest at a minimum that researchers stop measuring it with the Grit-S ... either new measures of grit be developed and validated that justify its treatment as a unique construct, or that
Ponnock, A., Muenks, K., Morell, M., Yang, J. S., Gladstone, J. R., & Wigfield, A. (2020). 'Grit and conscientiousness: Another jangle fallacy.' Journal of Research in Personality, 89, article 104021. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2020.104021. Tests the overlap at the item level rather than the scale level. 1,246 ninth and tenth graders, 45.7 per cent female, mean age 14.86, seven urban public and independent high schools in the north-eastern United States, with semester maths and science grades from school records. Latent correlations: perseverance with conscientiousness .87, consistency with conscientiousness .53, the two facets with each other .47. The bi-factor model in which the two grit facets form an overall grit factor 'did not converge, suggesting that the two grit factors (CI and PE) do not make up an overall grit construct', and the best-fitting models fused conscientiousness with one grit facet. Their conclusion: 'we conclude that grit as measured by the Grit-S is merely a relabeling of the conscientiousness construct that is already established in the literature, and thus a classic jangle fallacy.' Their recommendation: 'We suggest at a minimum that researchers stop measuring it with the Grit-S ... either new measures of grit be developed and validated that justify its treatment as a unique construct, or that
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89, article 104021. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2020.104021.