Further Validation of Survey Effort Measures of Relevant Character Skills: Results from a Sample of High School Students

Abstract

Character skills, including conscientiousness, grit or self-control are important determinants of relevant life outcomes. However, researchers struggle to find valid measures of these skills and many existing datasets lack any measures of them at all. This limits research on how these important skills could be better supported and developed. Recent research has shown the potential of parametrizations of survey effort measures as proxy measures of character skills related to conscientiousness, to either complement other collected measures or to add to datasets that lack such measures. This study provides further validation of these survey effort measures in a sample of high school students by studying their relationship with external measures reported by teachers, other direct performance task measures of related skills, high school academic outcomes, and college attendance. Our results show promise for survey effort measures to be used as proxy measures of character skills related to grit and self-control.

Keywords: Survey Effort, Character Skills, Teacher Reports, High School Performance

JEL Classification: C83, C91