Metacognitive Training and Its Impact on Academic Grit Among University Students

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between metacognition and academic grit and evaluates whether metacognitive training can foster grit among university students. Drawing on theoretical accounts of metacognition and grit, empirical correlational studies, and recent intervention research, we synthesize existing evidence and report a focused evidence summary. We show that metacognitive awareness and regulation are consistently linked with perseverance-related constructs and that interventions designed to develop metacognitive skills produce measurable gains in self-regulated learning and related motivational outcomes. However, the literature on whether metacognitive training directly increases trait-like grit is limited and mixed; available correlational work shows strong associations in some student samples (e.g., Arslan et al., 2013), while large-scale work on grit’s predictive validity suggests smaller average effects across diverse outcomes (Duckworth et al., 2007). We propose an integrative conceptual model in which metacognitive training affects short-to-medium-term perseverance (state grit, self-regulatory persistence) and indirectly supports the development of more stable grit via repeated mastery experiences and changes in goal-consistency practices.