Abstract

Grit has gained much attention lately as a determinant of an individual's success, both academically and professionally. While research on grit is in great length among various populations and scopes, the study of grit within the context of mathematics pre-service teachers has remained relatively unexplored. This review aims to evaluate existing grit scales and their applicability to mathematics pre-service teachers by analyzing their psychometric soundness and contextual relevance. Using predefined inclusion criteria, 19 studies were selected from databases including Google Scholar, SCOPUS, ERIC, and Web of Science spanning 17 years. Most scales follow standard psychometric procedures, but they are general in scope and insensitive to the unique cognitive, emotional, and instructional challenges of mathematics teaching. Recent multidimensional models bring into importance new dimensions like flexibility and cognitively oriented focus, but heterogeneities and methodological loopholes like insufficient application of item-level analysis, measurement invariance, and longitudinal methods still exist. Both cultural and demographic issues affect grit expression, thus strengthening the use of contextually and culturally sensitive measures. No scale yet takes into account the distinct difficulties involved in being mathematics pre-service teachers. This review supports the utilization of a discipline-specific, psychometrically solid MPT-Grit Scale as a way of bolstering teacher education and teacher resilience in math teaching.

1. Introduction

Grit has gained much attention lately as a determinant of an individual's success, both academically and professionally. The construct of grit, that is, perseverance and passion for long-term goals, has been popularized by psychologists and educators ¹. The construct defines grit's association with persistence, goal commitment, and resilience in the face of setbacks and is considered a potential predictor of success in both academic and professional settings ². This construct has exploded onto the scene for its ability to forecast success uniquely, even beyond traditional measures like intelligence and talent ³. Understanding grit in the context of teacher education has provided valuable lengths of insights in terms of it being a factor in resilience in teaching ⁴, self-efficacy ⁵, leadership skill development ⁶, teacher cognitive flexibility ⁷, and teacher success ⁸.

Highly gritty teachers are more resilient and more inclined to fit in with challenges, sustain motivation, and illustrate persistence in student-centered instruction ⁴. Grit is also closely linked to teacher self-efficacy, boosting teachers' confidence in being able to make a difference with students ⁵. Research also associates grit with teacher retention, specifically in high-stress or low-resource environments, where greater grit levels are predictors of longer tenures in the profession ³. Cultural dimensions of grit have also been recognized, highlighting the necessity for contextually appropriate grit models ^{9, 10}. This is indicative of a call for early identification and intervention in supporting grit in teacher preparation programs.

While research on grit is in great length among various populations and scopes, the study of grit within the context of mathematics pre-service teachers (MPSTs) has remained relatively unexplored. However, there are important aspects of MPST education where the idea of grit is introduced, such as studies on specific struggles of MPSTs with assessment ¹¹ and mathematical resilience ¹². The aspects of reflective practices in mathematics teaching ¹³ and emotional exhaustion ¹⁴ are also possible entries for the realization of the implication of grit in mathematics teacher education programs. Other literature also emphasizes the need for mathematics teacher education programs to integrate inclusive education ¹⁵ and culturally sensitive education ¹⁶.

With a growing demand for effective mathematics educators, there is also a growing need for an understanding of the personal characteristics necessary to develop and sustain that effectiveness and success. One such characteristic is grit, long-term sustained passion, and perseverance toward achieving long-term goals. Grit appears as a significant positive predictor for success in many fields, including education. This monitoring is important, as MPSTs are exposed to special stressors such as intense testing, high academic demands, and scarce classroom experience.

The high cognitive load of learning and teaching math, combined with the affective challenge of practicum teaching, usually results in stress, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion among MPSTs ^{17, 18}. These issues indicate a necessity for grit within specific domains that capture their unique experiences. Assembling grit assessment to also encompass such elements as adaptability, goal-driven resilience, and coping mechanisms for the pressures of academics and instruction could create more valid and useful information regarding how grit assists their growth and eventual success as professional teachers.

This critical review aims to identify gaps in existing grit scales, focusing on their use for MPSTs. The review evaluates the psychometric properties of existing grit scales and potential validity dimensions of grit, which might be particularly pertinent for prospective mathematics teachers. This merging of findings would enable the critical review to identify what is missing in the currently available literature and offer future directions for research and scale development, specifically to a domain rich with cognitive demands, pedagogical complexities, performance pressures, and context-specific challenges such as mathematical abstraction, assessment anxiety, and practical exposure.

2. Method

The steps for this critical review have been adapted from the 8-step guide by ¹⁹: identifying the purpose, drafting a protocol, conducting a practical screen, searching for relevant literature, extracting data, assessing data quality, synthesizing studies, and writing a review. This enabled the researchers to look for studies that would inform the development and validation of grit scales in education with great psychometric properties and solid methodologies in the construction of the grit scales.

Data extraction was done by a thorough and broad initial search using Google Scholar and other research databases, such as Scopus, ERIC, and Web of Science. Search terms such as "grit," "scale development," "scale validation," "teacher education," "math pre-service teachers," "resilience," "perseverance," and "persistence," as well as various combinations between them, were entered to gather as much relevant literature as possible. After this initial search, results from 435 items were then filtered against the different databases, leading to the elimination of 40 duplicates, as many of the results overlapped across databases and, in some instances, no new entries were generated.

Then, data quality assessment was covered by performing an exclusion process that allowed some literature for which the full text was unavailable (108) to be excluded. Inclusion is only done if complete articles are available for public access. Additional exclusions are those editorials (3) and book chapters (3). After this, 281 articles remain for assessment of the inclusion criteria identified by the researchers as the first stage.

The first inclusion criterion required that the literature meet the following: publication dates from 2009 to present, full-text articles in English, and empirical studies with primary data. The idea of securing 2009 to present literature originated from the idea that it was in 2007 that Grit Theory gained widespread attention, and it was in 2009 that the shorter version of the scale, the Short-Grit Scale, was developed. The other requirement was that the articles needed must have been published in peer-reviewed journals, with keywords like "grit," "teacher education," and "pre-service teachers" appearing in the title and/or abstract. The exclusion criteria included unpublished dissertations, theses, conference proceedings, and working papers. This process resulted in the exclusion of 68 studies.

Second, the inclusion criteria focused on the area of concern for the study. Thus, it only considered studies that developed and validated grit scales concerning teacher education and pre-service teachers. Excluded were materials dealing with other areas, such as medicine, sports, and business, or with in-service teachers or younger students such as elementary or secondary students. Studies limited to specific fields, such as language or health education, also formed part of those excluded, as they did not fit a focus on mathematics pre-service teachers. However, literature from other domains of teacher preparation and sample characteristics was left in purposely to understand how a scale for grit could be developed and validated, considering the solid discussions on psychometric properties and validation procedures. In the end, the process delivered a total of 127 articles for further investigation.

The final filtering step required strict adherence to the inclusion of either grit scale development or grit scale validation. At this point, a total of 84 articles were excluded for failing to include a specific objective of developing, validating, or adapting a grit scale. An additional 23 articles were skipped since they did not attempt to validate a scale, while one article was excluded for being non-empirical.

The final count of articles meeting all inclusion criteria was 19. The search and filtering process is presented in Figure 1. It followed a variant of the PRISMA Framework in observing the final set of literature to be included, as determined by the declared criteria of the researchers. The researchers also used MS Excel to manage citations, screening, and data extraction. Furthermore, ethical approval was not necessary for this publicly accessible literature review. These 19 articles were analyzed for data and result extraction. Synthesis is done using tabular comparisons of important descriptive information and psychometric properties of the included scales.

3. Results

This systematic review has indeed provided a set of literature on the development and validation of grit scales, focused mainly on the education context and pre-service teachers. A thorough examination was carried out on 19 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Table 1 presents the 19 studies included in the critical review and important descriptive information. These studies were quite different in their approaches toward scale development, their target populations, and the response scale. Further, Table 2 shows the results on the psychometric properties of the scales used, as well as the dimensions identified.

The studies collectively considered in this review cover a broad selection of research on grit scale development and validation, particularly in education. Studies were published in peer-reviewed journals from 2009 to the present, thereby ensuring that findings relate to contemporary change in grit research. Various dimensions were at the forefront of the studies, with some tracking more general academic grit, while others directed attention to specific educational contexts such as teacher education, STEM fields, and second-language acquisition. Some studies also examined cultural contextual differences in perception and the effect of grit across various educational settings. However, regardless of these differentiations, a theme united them that grit as a multidimensional construct should be modified with care, according to different populations and learning environments.

The reviewed studies have looked at various sample populations, including students in secondary education, students in higher education, in-service teachers, and pre-service teachers. Sample sizes varied significantly, with some studies having fewer than 100 participants and large-scale validations with over 1,000 respondents. Most studies focused on university students, particularly students in teacher education programs. A few studies specifically explored pre-service teachers in mathematics and science education. Most studies seem to have a fairly balanced gender distribution, although some data show a greater number of female participants, reflecting the general demographic trend in teacher education programs. Several other studies have looked into how culture might influence grit, and cross-cultural comparisons have shown differences in perseverance and passion for long-term goals based on educational and societal expectations.

Most of the literature reviewed employed rigorous psychometric methodologies, including Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for early structure identification and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for model confirmation. Most also presented goodness-of-fit indices (RMSEA, CFI, TLI) to complement their CFA. Cronbach's alpha was used most often in reporting reliability coefficient, although there were some with McDonald's omega ^{23, 30}. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized in higher-level validations, whereas some studies applied convergent and discriminant validity evidence through constructs like resilience, motivation, and self-regulation. Yet to be maximally exploited were Item Response Theory (IRT) ^{31, 37}, longitudinal validation, and multi-group CFA for testing measurement invariance ³³. Few studies only met cross-validation through independent samples ³⁵, and qualitative methods like interviews or classroom observations were surprisingly scarce. Also, the Grit-S has shown very good predictive validity for academic achievement ²⁰, while TGS has shown a positive correlation with teaching effectiveness and job satisfaction ²⁹.

The grit scales that were reviewed differed substantially in terms of length, ranging from a low of 8 items ^{20, 22, 25, 26} to a high of 22 items ²⁷. All measures employed a Likert-type response format, which was typically on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale. The utilization of Likert scales allows for efficient quantification of dispositional grit and enables cross-study comparison, although balanced items with reversed statements were employed in some measures, like the Triarchic Model of Grit Scale ⁹, to limit the response bias.

While the original model ¹ and most of the literature included two dimensions: Perseverance of Effort and Consistency of Interests, several studies proposed expanded models to better reflect the multidimensional nature of grit in educational and cultural contexts. Significant literature ^{9, 24} introduced triarchic models that added Adaptability to Situations, while another ^{26, 32} proposed a scale incorporating Focus/Study Focus.

All the studies used quantitative research designs, with no qualitative or mixed-method designs used in any of the studies. The majority used cross-sectional survey designs based on respondents' reports. One of the dominating observations in the reviewed studies is the lack of predictive validity measures that link grit to consequential educational outcomes such as program completion in teacher preparation programs, teaching performance, or career tenacity. Although some reviewed studies show that grit is significantly related to teaching-related outcomes such as teaching performance, job satisfaction, and academic engagement. For example, the Teacher Grit Scale (TGS) validated among Filipino teachers found that grit was positively correlated with performance in teaching and job satisfaction ²⁹. Similarly, the Academic Grit Scale ¹⁹, which looks at student grit, is also positively correlated with academic engagement and academic achievement. Grit's impact on mathematics pre-service teachers has not been directly assessed by any studies.

It was shown that in a collectivist culture, perseverance is expected to be more predictive of success over consistency of interest, as people would rather put value on long-term goals and collective success ²⁰. Also, the correlation between demographic features, like age and gender, and grit levels has been established. In prospective teacher studies, it was found that higher grit levels existed among females and individuals aged 25 and above ²¹. Disciplinary context may also matter. For example, the study comparing physics and mathematics teacher candidates ²² showed no significant difference in grit levels between the two groups. However, it did show that female students tended to have more grit than their male counterparts. Furthermore, while some studies localized their questionnaires for cultural sensitivity in the Philippines ⁹, Russia ³⁷, India ^{21, 24, 31, 34}, Turkey ³⁶, Cambodia ¹⁰, Peru ¹², Pakistan ²⁷, Germany ²⁵, Russia ³⁷, and Indonesia ^{32, 35}, none of the grit scales were specifically developed for the context of mathematics instruction.

No grit scale was developed with mathematics pre-service teachers in mind. Few proposed general-purpose grit scales ^{1, 9}, yet their utility in highly specialized fields like mathematics teaching remains untested. All reviewed studies employed cross-sectional survey methods with no qualitative or longitudinal components ^{1, 24, 37}. Such reliance on self-reported data introduces potential biases and fails to capture how grit develops or fluctuates during pre-service training. The development of all scales was expert or researcher-driven, with no studies reporting input from teacher educators or pre-service teachers themselves.

4. Discussion

From the systematic review, it is seen that a substantial base of existing grit scales can easily be modified for a more specific context, and the research gaps identified will provide an orientation for developing and studying new scales.

The examined studies show a uniform adherence to standard psychometric procedures in the development of scales for grit ³⁸. In the majority of reviewed studies, EFA was used to investigate latent structures in the construction of the scales, and subsequently, CFA was used to confirm dimensional models. The incorporation of goodness-of-fit indices like RMSEA, CFI, and TLI was a common practice, adding to the stringency of model validation. Reliability estimates were usually reported in terms of Cronbach's alpha, with some studies employing McDonald's omega as a more reliable estimate, especially in multidimensional models ^{23, 30}.

SEM was employed to test the relations between grit and external constructs at more sophisticated levels of analysis. Some of the studies offered convergent and discriminant validity by contrasting grit with other variables that are closely related, such as resilience, academic motivation, and self-regulation, and furthering construct distinctiveness and empirical significance. Nonetheless, advanced validation methods like IRT were seldom applied, only seen in research such as ³¹ and ³⁷, thus indicating scope for more in-depth item-level analysis.

Of particular interest, measurement invariance using multi-group CFA was rarely conducted, with only a few studies ³³ examining how grit operates within demographic groups. Similarly, cross-validation using independent samples was rare and only dealt with by a small proportion of studies ³⁵, precluding generalizability. Longitudinal designs, critical for establishing grit as a stable characteristic over time, were largely non-existent. In addition, qualitative approaches like observations or interview-based work that might expand and situate quantitative results were infrequently combined, limiting the chance for more interpretive understanding of how grit appears in schools.

Concerning predictive validity, the Grit-S is promising, especially in predicting academic achievement outcomes ²⁰, whereas the Triarchic Grit Scale (TGS) was found to have positive correlations with teaching effectiveness and job satisfaction ²⁹. These results emphasize the applied potential of grit scales but also point to the necessity for more applied and longitudinal research designs to confirm these relationships across diverse educational settings.

The dimensional configuration of grit measures throughout the studies included in this review shows both uniformity with the initial framework as well as salient diversification. The original model ¹, which was made up of Perseverance of Effort and Consistency of Interests, remains a widely regarded standard. More recent studies have, however, attempted to remediate the limitations of contextuality and behavior for the two-dimensional formulation by advancing richer, context-rich models.

For example, ^{9, 24} proposed a triarchic model by incorporating Adaptability to Situations, a facet meant to capture individuals' ability to stay goal-directed in the face of changing environments and obstacles. Such a third facet is an exception to the more structural model of grit, as it proposes that flexible persistence can be equally vital as inflexible effort, especially in high-demand contexts such as teacher training.

Likewise, ^{26, 32} added a dimension titled Focus or Study Focus, which represents prolonged cognitive attention and task-oriented persistence. These additions address criticism that the initial grit dimensions do not adequately cover the attention and regulation elements of prolonged effort in learning and teaching settings.

Despite these emerging dimensions, no consensus has yet been reached on an optimal model, reflecting the evolving and context-sensitive nature of grit. Some models still employ just the original two dimensions, and others provide three or more derived from various theoretical perspectives or empirical results. Such variability implies that grit as a construct might inherently be context-specific, and dimensional models should be designed to suit the particular performance contexts being researched, such as mathematics education, where cognitive persistence and flexibility are particularly important.

As the shift toward multidimensional models represents a productive development of the grit construct, it also highlights the importance of further systematic comparative studies to determine which dimensions are most predictive and meaningful across educational settings. These expansions align with the complex challenges faced by teachers, particularly in high-stakes or rapidly evolving environments. Though the dimensions of perseverance, passion, and resilience are commonly identified in most of the grit scales, this evolving dimensionality supports a more nuanced understanding of grit as a multifaceted construct.

The critical review highlights the need for contextual and cultural adaptation in the development of grit scales. In collectivist cultures, where group success and long-term group objectives tend to be more important than individual goals, the perseverance of effort dimension is more predictive of success than consistency of interests ²⁰. This implies that grit can be expressed differently based on cultural expectations, emphasizing the insufficiency of universal measurement instruments that fail to account for such sociocultural differences.

In addition, demographic variables seem to affect levels of grit. Prospective teacher research suggests that females and respondents aged 25 and older reported higher levels of grit ²¹. This demographic range makes it important to ensure that grit measures are both demographically responsive and psychometrically valid, especially in contexts of teacher education where maturity and life experience might modulate persistence.

Whereas some studies have attempted to culturally translate grit scales, and said attempts at adaptation were largely confined to translation and structural validation in general educational populations. None of the reviewed instruments, few if any, were specifically designed for the teaching profession, and most importantly, no existing instruments explicitly operationalize the forms of perseverance required in mathematics instruction, such as managing abstract reasoning or addressing persistent student misconceptions.

This is an important limitation, considering that mathematics instruction requires varied types of cognitive and emotional perseverance to address such tasks as working with abstract material, coping with student misconceptions, and maintaining instructional clarity. While one study comparing physics teacher candidates to mathematics teacher candidates revealed no general difference in the two groups' levels of grit, it did reaffirm the trend of increased grit levels among girls ³⁵. Collectively, these results point to a necessity for grit measures that not only are culturally and linguistically tailored but also sensitive to the demographic and disciplinary specificity of the test population. In mathematics, specifically pre-service teachers, however, there still exists a very obvious measurement tool gap that caters to the special perseverance demands of the discipline. Future research should seek to create discipline-specific, culture-based grit measures that consider both contextual applicability and demographic diversity.

Despite an increasing amount of research on grit, there is still a significant lack of discipline-specific measures, especially in the case of mathematics education. Current grit scales are predominantly domain-general and therefore might neglect the specific cognitive, affective, and pedagogical difficulties that define mathematics instruction. These include extended problem-solving under cognitive load, handling abstract conceptual frameworks, and sustaining student interest despite prevalent challenges such as math anxiety or aversion to problem complexity.

Although ²³ cross-validated the L2-Teacher Grit Scale for language teachers, it is one of the limited domain-specific adaptations that exist. No studies within the current review centered on a grit scale created specifically for mathematics teaching. While the L2-Teacher Grit Scale illustrates the promise of domain-specific measures, its language-related constructs are unlikely to measure the epistemic persistence required in mathematics teaching. The absence of disciplinary specificity is of concern, especially since successful mathematics teaching frequently requires epistemological grit, conceptual persistence, and the capacity to adjust pedagogical approaches in real-time.

In addition, MPSTs often face emotional and motivational obstacles such as stereotype risk, students' low confidence, and their affective reactions to challenging material, which necessitate particular elements of emotional regulation and cognitive grit. These essential facets are not captured in most current measures. Thus, the lack of a discipline-sensitive grit scale not only constrains the validity of grit measurement in mathematics teacher education programs but also inhibits the development of effective, targeted interventions to facilitate teacher development.

A specially committed scale for mathematics instruction would allow for more accurate measurement of pre-service teachers' strengths and deficiencies in areas related to persistence. It would also be used in the creation of curricular and support systems that develop the type of adaptive perseverance and instructional tenacity necessary for productive practice in the mathematics classroom.

5. Conclusion

This critical review explored the development and validation of grit scales in a bid to establish the feasibility of establishing a Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers Grit (MPT-Grit) Scale. Through identifying patterns in the development of grit scales and the conceptual and methodological gaps, this review identifies the following needs and direction for research in the field of mathematics pre-service teachers' grit.

• Most grit measures are constructed with rigorous psychometric methods such as EFA, CFA, and internal consistency estimates, but sophisticated techniques such as IRT and measurement invariance are not commonly applied.

• Current research is not adequately predictive and longitudinally validated, and therefore, the knowledge of grit's long-term influence on real-world educational achievement is restricted.

• While the initial two-factor model is still prevalent, subsequent models add dimensions such as Adaptability and Focus, but no consensus framework has yet been developed.

• It is understood that cultural and demographic factors are involved in grit, but most scales do not meaningfully incorporate these factors beyond simple translation.

• There is an evident absence of scales for mathematics pre-service teachers, leaving discipline-specific challenges unaddressed.

• The existing development of grit scales does not incorporate pre-service teachers' or educators' inputs, thus lowering the contextual applicability and practical utility of the instruments.

• Culturally sensitive and discipline-specific grit scales, especially in mathematics education, are urgently needed to better research and support teacher development.

This provides a strong argument for developing a specialized scale for MPT grit. To fill this gap, developing MPT-Grit will add context to the bigger picture of how grit plays an important role in mathematics, possibly for teacher preparation programs and interventions to improve future teachers' resilience and performance.

Implications for Teacher Education Programs

This review underscores the need to integrate grit into teacher preparation. Grit profiles can be used by training programs to guide course design, catch at-risk pre-service teachers early, and provide targeted interventions. Integrating grit development strategies, such as instilling perseverance and flexibility, can help develop teacher resilience and preparedness. Incorporating grit profiling into initial teacher training could make it possible to identify pre-service teachers at risk earlier and allow for the development of interventions that promote resilience, particularly in mathematics-intensive settings.

Future Research Directions

This review provides a foundation platform for subsequent scale development and summarizes the psychometric and contextual issues required for measuring grit among mathematics pre-service teachers. Future work must prioritize developing and validating an MPT-Grit Scale based on sound psychometric evidence. Research should also investigate the correlation between grit, instructional performance, emotional resilience, and academic persistence of mathematics pre-service teachers. Demographic variables such as gender and the cultural context should also be investigated to make the scale context-sensitive and equitable.

Limitations of the Review

This review was limited to peer-reviewed articles in English accessible through selected databases. Relevant literature in other languages, grey literature, and preprint studies may have been overlooked, potentially introducing publication bias.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The researchers would like to thank Dr. Laila S. Lomibao for her valuable insights and input in refining this paper. Also, the researchers acknowledge the Department of Science and Technology – Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) for the scholarship support provided during the conduct of this research.

References