Does Being Gritty Mean Being College-Ready? Investigating the Link between Grit and College Readiness among Filipino K-12 Graduates

Abstract

This study challenges the basic assumption that college readiness is accounted to senior high school (SHS) graduates’ cognitive abilities. It proffers that certain non-cognitive personality traits like grit may influence the college readiness of SHS graduates in a non-Western context. The study used descriptive-correlation design to examine the relationship between grit and college readiness of 7,533 K-12 graduates enrolled in one public university in the north-eastern part of the Philippines. The results reveal that K-12 graduates admitted in the respondent-university are “mostly gritty,” and a more significant proportion of them are college-unready. The students' grittiness is exemplified in the Filipinos' grit-related concepts such as sigasig (persistence of effort) and tiyaga (constancy in work) that are pursued because of their concept of “relational self.” The test of the relationship shows that grit has a positive influence on the college readiness of SHS graduates. This finding proves that cognitive traits may not be a good factor in making SHS graduates admitted and successful in college. Essentially, some non-cognitive traits like grit are as vital as intellectual abilities in influencing college readiness. Given these results, it is imperative that educators and school administrators of the K-12 program need to develop further not only the intellectual abilities of the students under their care but also to give equal emphasis and development among elementary and secondary students as it is a valid and essential personal trait to better prepare them for a college education.