THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GROWTH MINDSET, GRIT, AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT: DOES GOAL COMMITMENT MATTER?

Abstract

This present study’s consisted of Ghanaian junior high school adolescents, precisely JHS1 and JHS 2. The study duration spanned from January 2019 to October 2020. During the study period, two assessments were done. In the first assessment, primary six students consisting of 425 adolescents, were assessed from 35 schools. During the year 2019, students in primary six who partook in the first assessment were engaged when they had been promoted to Junior high school. They included students who had become part of the classroom experiment. Eventually, this approach resulted in a sample size of 632 students for both JHS 1 and JHS 2. The data collection used structured questionnaires, and the snowballing approach was used for sampling and sample recruitment. The analytical method used for data analysis is structural equation modeling (SEM). This method is reliable for understanding the unique relationship between the dependent and independent variables to reveal their direct and indirect effects. This present study found that a growth mindset and grit are proportionally related to students’ academic achievement. However, grit should be measured by the perseverance of effort, not consistency of interest and conscientiousness, to positively affect academic achievement. Both goal commitment and growth mindset are related to understanding how grit contributes positively to academic success. In essence, the findings imply that students need to have the perseverance to trigger their growth mindset and goal commitment to affect their academic pursuits positively. KEYWORDS: Growth mindset; Grit; Academic achievement; Goal commitment