Examining the relationship between secondary school students' academic grit with self-esteem and locus of control

The first purpose of this study is to examine whether the academic grit of secondary school students (6th, 7th and 8th grades) differ significantly in terms of gender, school type, grade level, mother's education level and father's education level. The second purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between the academic grit of secondary school students and the variables of self-esteem and locus of control.The research was designed with the correlational research model. Causal comparison and correlation methods, which are the two main types of correlational research model, were used. The sample of this research consists of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students who continue their education in the secondary school and religious secondary school in Elazig at the 2020-2021 academic year. In the research, purposeful stratified sampling (quota sampling) method, which is one of the purposive sampling methods, was used. The sample of the research consists of 929 students, whose grade level is determined as a quota, who continue their education in the secondary school and religious secondary school affiliated to the Ministry of Education in Elazig. As data collection tools; "Personal Information Form", "Academic Grit Scale", "Coopersmith Self-Esteem Scale (Short form)" and "Locus of Control Scale" were used. Descriptive statistics calculations were used while analyzing the data. In order to determine whether the academic grit of secondary school students differ significantly according to the independent variables of gender and school type, t-test for independent samples; One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for the independent variables of grade level, mother's education level, and father's education level. Scheffe test was applied to determine between which groups there was a significant difference as a result of one-way analysis of variance. The effect size of the significant difference between the groups was determined by the eta-square (η2) method. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationship between the academic grit of secondary school students and self-esteem and locus of control. Multiple regression analysis was performed to find out to what extent secondary school students' self-esteem and locus of control predicted their academic grit. According to the results obtained from the research, while the academic grit of secondary school students did not show a significant difference in terms of gender, school type, mother's education level and father's education level; students' academic grit differs significantly in terms of grade level variable. Academic grit of 6th grade students is higher than 7th and 8th grade students. The effect size of this difference (η2 = 0.14) is small. A positive, moderate and significant relationship was found between the academic grit of secondary school students and their self-esteem and locus of control. Self-esteem and locus of control variables together explain 18% of the change in academic grit scores. The relative importance of the predictor variables on academic stability according to the standardized regression coefficients are locus of control (β = .28) and self-esteem (β = .20). Keywords: Academic Grit, Self-esteem, Locus of Control, Secondary School Students