A Novel Low-Cost Indicator of Student Perseverance and Its Association with College Student Academic Performance

David B Yerger,Amber L Stephenson

doi:10.5539/ass.v14n6p43

David B Yerger, Amber L Stephenson

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v14n6p43

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Abstract

Within the research literature investigating how student characteristics related to perseverance impact academic outcomes, leading scholars have encouraged the development of new measurements, both survey and non-survey based. We introduce here an innovative non-survey-based measurement, derived from common higher education variables, that reflects the perseverance construct. The created perseverance proxy is easily created and explainable to audiences with minimal statistical background. The variable was used to analyze academic outcomes at a mid-sized public university in the United States. The perseverance proxy strongly positively associates with academic outcomes, as measured both by GPA and odds of academic probation, in multivariate analysis across both genders. The perseverance proxy explains more of the variation in academic outcomes than any of the cognitive and financial aid variables used in the analysis. The technique for constructing the perseverance proxy is easily replicated at any college or university having data on students’ high school ranking and college admission exam scores.

Highlights

This paper introduces to the literature a variable computed from data commonly found in students’ college application materials that is quite likely to correlate with perseverance
One set of variables commonly found to be significant are various measures of cognitive ability, such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and American College Testing (ACT) tests often required for admission to U.S colleges and universities, while another frequently significant variable is a measure of pre-college academic performance such as a high school class rank (Noble & Sawyer, 2004; Sawyer, 2013)
Our constructed perseverance variable is easy to replicate and has a straightforward interpretation: it is a student’s relative over, or under, performance on high school class rank given their expected rank based on their SAT scores

Summary

Introduction

This paper introduces to the literature a variable computed from data commonly found in students’ college application materials that is quite likely to correlate with perseverance. The computed perseverance proxy is shown to improve the estimation of academic outcomes for students at the institution studied in this research project. The scholarly community has shown mounting interest in identifying student qualities beyond cognitive ability that impact performance outcomes (Duckworth & Yeager, 2015). The construct is found, even after controlling for cognitive measures, to associate with higher Grade Point Averages (GPAs) (Duckworth, et al, 2007; Scherer, Talley, & Fife, 2017; Strayhorn, 2013), to impact persistence beyond basic training and retention through West Point Military Academy graduation (Kelly, Matthews, & Bartone, 2014), and sales workforce retention and high school graduation (Eskreis-Winkler, Shulman, Beal, & Duckworth, 2014)

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