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Opinion|No, You Don’t Get an A for Effort
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/opinion/school-grades-a-quantity-quality.html
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Guest Essay
Dec. 26, 2024, 5:01 a.m. ET
Video
By Adam Grant
Dr. Grant, a contributing Opinion writer, is an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
After 20 years of teaching, I thought I’d heard every argument in the book from students who wanted a better grade. But recently, at the end of a weeklong course with a light workload, multiple students had a new complaint: “My grade doesn’t reflect the effort I put into this course.”
High marks are for excellence, not grit. In the past, students understood that hard work was not sufficient — an A required great work. Yet today, many students expect to be rewarded for the quantity of their effort rather than the quality of their knowledge. In surveys, two-thirds of college students say that “trying hard” should be a factor in their grades, and a third think they should get at least a B just for showing up at (most) classes.
This isn’t Gen Z’s fault. It’s the result of a misunderstanding about one of the most popular educational theories.
More than a generation ago, the psychologist Carol Dweck published groundbreaking experiments that changed how many parents and teachers talk to kids. Praising kids for their abilities undermined their resilience, making them more likely to get discouraged or give up when they encountered setbacks. They developed what came to be known as a fixed mind-set — they thought success depended on innate talent, and they didn’t have the right stuff. To persist and learn in the face of challenges, kids needed to believe that skills are malleable. And the best way to nurture this growth mind-set was to shift from praising intelligence to praising effort.
The idea of lauding persistence quickly made its way into viral articles, best-selling books and popular TED talks. It resonated with the Protestant work ethic and reinforced the American dream that with hard work, anyone could achieve success.
Psychologists have long found that rewarding effort cultivates a strong work ethic and reinforces learning. That’s especially important in a world that often favors naturals over strivers — and for students who weren’t born into comfort or don’t have a record of achievement. (And it’s far preferable to the other corrective: participation trophy culture, which celebrates kids for just showing up.)
