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

By Sule Alan, Teodora Boneva, Seda Ertac. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2019

343 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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.

Subfields: Safety Research, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/38ed957e844fb3edd0402f36789421a3725f2fed

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Safety Research

1. Sule Alan
2. Seda Ertac
3. Ipek Mumcu

In Social Psychology

1. Sule Alan
2. Seda Ertac
3. G. Bono

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Seda Ertac
2. Sule Alan
3. G. Bono
4. Ipek Mumcu

Citations in the corpus

• Fostering Patience in the Classroom: Results from Randomized Educational Intervention (2018, background): “Alan, Boneva, and Ertac (2015) show that this intervention has significant positive effects on ability accumulation and test scores.”
• Gender Stereotypes in the Classroom and Effects on Achievement (2017, result): “This shift toward a fixed mindset may in turn lead to lower motivation and performance, as has been shown in the literature (Blackwell et al., 2007; Alan et al., 2016).”
• Stress and wellbeing in urban college students in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic: Can grit and gratitude help? (2020, background): “Specifically, grit interventions should involve trained teachers in promoting growth mindset, adaptability and reflection on larger academic goals in students directly in their academic courses (Alan et al., 2019); and gratitude interventions should personalize practices so that they enhance in-pers”