Truancy, perseverance, and academic achievement are all closely related. Past research has found that perseverance is a predictor of academic achievement and truancy. This study by Zhang and colleagues (2024) further explores the relationship between these three concepts, specifically the nuances behind the various ways that perseverance affects truancy and academic achievement.

This study relies heavily on data recorded in the PISA 2012 data set, which uses information from 485,490 15 year olds in 80 different countries. This study uses math test scores to measure achievement and measure truancy through questions about how often participants were late for school, skipping the whole day, and skipping class.  Perseverance is measured with a five item scale. Items belong to four facets which include the following:

Industriousness (“When confronted with a problem. I do more than what is expected of me”)

Perfectionism (“I continue working on tasks until everything is perfect”)

Procrastination Refrainment (“I put off difficult problem”)

Perseverance (“When confronted with a problem, I give up easily” “I remain interested in tasks that I start")

The researchers found that perseverance predicts both math achievement and truancy in general. However, at the country level, researchers found that countries with higher average perseverance didn’t always show higher achievement. This observed pattern of country by country measures of perseverance being contradictory is called the ecological fallacy. It was also found that certain items on the perseverance scale had varied predictive powers. Items in the facet of perseverance like “When confronted with a problem, I give up easily” are the strongest predictors of achievement.

The results of this study reinforce the importance of perseverance in student success. It also gives us more insight to the fact that perseverance is associated with student absences. An educator or administrator could potentially use these findings to promote interventions of perseverance to students at risk of truancy.

EPIC could conduct research to dive deeper into numerous aspects of this study. Mainly, EPIC could conduct a study to explore how this predictive relationship between perseverance, truancy, and academic achievement changes from region to region. It is possible that perseverance is less impactful in some cultures than others.

To learn more about this study, access the full article here:  https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000505

This post is written by Akhil Kotha.

Reference:

Zhang, L., Wetzel, E., Yoon, H. J., & Roberts, B. W. (2024). Perseverance, a measure of conscientiousness, is a valid predictor of achievement and truancy across the globe. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 126(5), 852–872. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000505