Ever Failed, Try Again, Succeed Better: Results from a Randomized Educational Intervention on Grit

Sule Alan, Teodora Boneva and Seda Ertac ()
Additional contact information
Seda Ertac: Koc University

No 2015-009, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: We show that grit, a non-cognitive skill that has been shown to be highly predictive of achievement, is malleable in the childhood period and can be fostered in the classroom environment. Our evidence comes from an evaluation of a randomized educational intervention implemented in elementary schools in Istanbul. Outcomes are measured via a novel incentivized real effort task and actual school grades on core subjects. We find that treated students are 1) more likely to choose to undertake a more challenging and more rewarding task against an easier but less rewarding alternative, 2) less likely to give up after failure, 3) more likely to exert effort to accumulate task-specific ability, and consequently, 4) more likely to succeed and collect higher payoffs. The intervention also has a significant impact on school grades: We find that treated students are about 3 percentage points more likely to receive top grades in core academic subjects.

Keywords: non-cognitive skills; grit; perseverance; field experiments; randomized interventions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C93 D03 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-edu, nep-exp and nep-ure
Note: IP
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Alan_Boneva_Ertac_2015_grit.pdf First version, April 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Ever Failed, Try Again, Succeed Better: Results from a Randomized Educational Intervention on Grit (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hka:wpaper:2015-009

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