Gritty students: The effect of perseverance on retention for traditional and nontraditional students

It is important to examine characteristics that contribute to successful retention in an engineering program, particularly among nontraditional and transfer students. One characteristic trait that has been experimentally linked to success is grit, which is defined as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals" [1]. Although grit is widely seen as a personality trait, it has also been shown to be something that people can be taught; that is, interventions can be enacted to increase a person's grit. The simplicity of measuring someone's grit score, and the straight-forward intervention path for those with lower scores, makes this trait an attractive candidate for examination among students. Preliminary studies establish net grit scores of students at beginning stages of the engineering program, at a two-year and four-year institute. Intermediate and advanced students within a mechanical engineering program are also studied. The longitudinal aspect of this study will follow individuals as they progress through or abandon the program. The mechanical engineering program at the University of Wisconsin - Platteville (UW - Platteville) has a collaborative program relationship with thirteen two-year Colleges that allows any student who has achieved an associate's degree to stay at their two-year Colleges campus while obtaining a mechanical engineering BS degree from UW - Platteville. This program increases educational access to nontraditional, place-bound students across the state. Preliminary results of a longitudinal study involving grit in nontraditional and traditional students are presented. While the longitudinal study involves following students throughout their academic career, this study compares grit scores between groups of students at different academic stages. Traditional students are surveyed at a freshman introductory Success Skills course, and nontraditional and traditional students at the Colleges are surveyed in a transfer equivalent course. Traditional and nontraditional students are surveyed together in an intermediate course, which is one of the first that students take after having been accepted into the mechanical engineering program, early in their junior year. Students are surveyed again in their senior design course. Comparisons are made between the different academic levels as well as between traditional and nontraditional students, with attention paid to confounding factors such as gender and racial identity.