Assessing construct validity of the Grit-S in Chinese employees

Chuxian Zhong; Meng-Cheng Wang; Yiyun Shou; Fen Ren; Xintong Zhang; Mingshu Li; Wendeng Yang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209319

Assessing construct validity of the Grit-S in Chinese employees

PLoS One. 2018 Dec 21;13(12):e0209319. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209319. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Chuxian Zhong^{1

2}, Meng-Cheng Wang^{1

2

3}, Yiyun Shou⁴, Fen Ren⁵, Xintong Zhang^{1

2}, Mingshu Li^{1

2}, Wendeng Yang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China.
² The Center for Psychometrics and Latent Variable Modeling, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China.
³ The Key Laboratory for Juveniles Mental Health and Educational Neuroscience in Guangdong Province, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
⁵ School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China.

Abstract

This research examined the psychometric properties and construct validity of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S) in Chinese insurance employees (N = 2,363; 37% males; mean age = 35.14). Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to determine the factor structure of the Grit-S. The resulting model was tested by multi-group CFA for the factorial invariance of the Grit-S across genders and age groups. Results showed that the Grit-S could be best explained by a two-factor model containing consistency of interest (α = .70) and perseverance of effort (α = .75). The factor model was equivalent across genders and age groups. The scores of the Grit-S were significantly correlated with external criteria variables including mental wellbeing and job performance. Overall, our findings suggested that the Grit-S can be a promising assessment of the grit trait in Chinese employees.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Aged
Burnout, Professional / psychology
China
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Models, Psychological
Occupational Stress / psychology
Psychometrics / methods*
Psychometrics / statistics & numerical data
Reproducibility of Results
Surveys and Questionnaires
Work Engagement
Work-Life Balance
Young Adult

Grants and funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 31400904; http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/), and Guangzhou University's 2017 training program for young top-notch personnels (BJ201715; http://english.gzhu.edu.cn/). MCW received those funds. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.