Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
1416023014
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
Author
Ngo, Matthew T.
Title
A teacher's autoethography of grit and student success in a high school physics classroom.
Degree
M.Ed. -- St. Francis Xavier University, 2023
Publisher
[Antigonish, Nova Scotia] : St. Francis Xavier University, 2023
Description
1 online resource
Abstract
What factors, situations and contexts lead to the success of students in school? Success can mean different things to different individuals and, therefore, success is context specific. Authors such as Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews and Kelly (2007) refer to success and achievement as the "accomplishment of widely valued goals" (p. 1087). These researchers suggest that highly accomplished students tend to have a high degree of grit. While much research related to grit focuses on personality traits such as determination, conscientiousness, sustained effort and the ability to persevere when encountering obstacles, other significant and sometimes overlooked factors also significantly impact a student's ability to be gritty and successful in schools. Literature from Gorski (2016) suggests that grit ideology falls somewhere between two ends of a wide spectrum--deficit and structural ideology. For those who associate grit with deficit ideology, there is a belief that students can change their success and situation through a change in "attitudes, behaviors, cultures, and mindset" (p. 381). However, for those who associate grit with structural ideology, there is recognition of factors such as poverty, socioeconomic status, race, gender and inequity of school resources. Through an autoethnographic lens, the culture of grit and student success was researched and explored within a high school physics classroom. While deficit ideological traits exist in the autoethnographic stories involving former students, structural ideological factors also show crucial moments and times when a student's grit and success radically changed for the better or declined as a result.
Other link(s)
stfxscholar.cairnrepo.org
Subject
grit
student success
mindsets
motivation
physics
high school
ideology
deficit
structural
secondary school