Psychometric assessment of the Grit Scale: Evidence from US and Chinese samples

Abstract

To further understand the validity and generalizability of grit, this research investigated the psychometric properties of the Grit Scale in both individualistic (i.e., the US) and collectivistic (i.e., the Chinese) populations. Moreover, this research broadened the contributions of grit to vocational outcomes and showed that grit might be essential to success in other life domains beyond the academic context. Specifically, this cross-cultural research reported two studies that examined the conceptualization of grit proposed by Duckworth et al. (2007) and the concurrent validity of grit to vocational outcomes. Study 1 explored the factor structure of grit in a US general sample ( N = 2140) and a US college student sample ( N = 1935). Study 2 examined the factor structure of grit in a Chinese employee sample ( N = 675) and explored its concurrent validity to occupational well-being and proactive work behavior. Results showed that the bifactor model of grit scale fit best in both the US and Chinese samples. The high omega reliabilities indicated that the general grit score and its two subscales (i.e., perseverance of effort and consistency of interests) could be considered reliable. However, the multiple-group CFA measurement invariance test showed that only partial metric invariance for the perseverance of effort factor was verified across the three samples. Perseverance of effort explained more variance in vocational outcomes than the consistency of interests did among Chinese employees. The findings verified the multidimensionality of the Grit Scale and indicated that the relationships between the two facets of grit and vocational outcomes should be separately investigated.