152. CANCELLED: Measuring Grit in Undergraduate Animal Science Education: Insights for Curriculum and Extension Programming

Abstract Grit is defined as containing perseverance and passion for long term goals. The objective of this study was to discover undergraduate animal science students' perception of their own grit level. For this study, an online Qualtrics survey was created by the University of Arkansas Department of Human Sciences as a part of a larger study focusing on mental health knowledge, then deployed to sophomore students enrolled in an Animal and Food Sciences Professional Development course at Oklahoma State University. The survey aimed to evaluate at what level students recognize their grit. Participants responded to eight self-reflective statements related to their own level of grit, with responses ranging from “very much like me” to “not like me at all,” designed to assess their personal alignment with grit related traits. Of the 89 total responses collected, 83 were validated and included in the analysis. The data collected by the Qualtrics system was exported into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Four items were reverse coded, with higher scores indicating students acquire more grit. Two primary metrics were used: GritSum, the total score across all statements, and GritMean, the average score per statement on a 1–5 scale. For all eight statements, the overall GritSum scores ranged from 17 to 40, and GritMean scores ranged from 2.13 – 5.00. The most common GritSum score was 25 (n = 10), followed by 26 (n = 8). For GritMean, the most frequent score was 3.13 (n = 10), followed by 3.25 (n = 8). For the statement “I am a hard worker,” 64% (53/83; P < 0.001) students chose “very much like me”, while 1.2% (1/83; P < 0.001) chose “not much like me”. For the statement “I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one”, 54% (45/83; P < 0.001) of students chose “not much like me/not like me at all”, and 7% (6/83; P < 0.001) chose “very much like me”. These findings suggest that most students show moderate levels of grit, indicating a balanced capacity for perseverance and long-term goal commitment. This study revealed students’ internal perception aligns with the observed data. Where a greater number of students neither lacked grit nor exhibited extreme levels but rather showed a steady commitment to their goals. These insights may assist in framing future Cooperative Extension programming to foster resilience, persistence, and achievement among youth and early career professionals in agricultural sciences. Furthermore, the study indicates that grit is a trait with room for development in undergraduate students. Evaluating current undergraduate course curricula and refining future curricula could inadvertently increase grit in student performance.