Thursday, October 10, 2019

Research should go beyond just scratching the surface






















On October 3, 2019 at Medium Canadian life coach Kenn Dixon claimed:
“There has never been a test, nor will there ever be a test developed … that can determine the amount of passion or determination someone has.”












When I saw it reposted at the Public Speaking group on LinkedIn I just laughed at his lack of serious research. That is because I had read a 2016 book by University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Angela Duckworth titled Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. At her web site you can find a page on research with a 12 item grit scale (a test). The full text for magazine article from 2007 about it is here.



You can also watch her six-minute 2013 TED talk (also titled Grit: the power of passion and perseverance). It packs a lot into the length of a typical Toastmasters speech.    

An image of a worker using a wire brush was adapted from this one found at Wikimedia Commons.  

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