Is L2 grit a hierarchical construct? A meta-analysis targeting language learners

L2 grit has attracted much attention from language acquisition researchers since it is an important contributing factor in students' achieving language learning goals. The current meta-analysis reviewed and synthesised L2 grit literature among language learners to investigate whether L2 grit is a hierarchical construct. Results based on 293 effect sizes from 57 studies representing data from 60 unique samples and 25,570 participants showed two major findings: first, the correlation between perseverance of effort (PE) and consistency of interest (CI) (i.e. the two components of L2 grit) was at a medium-to-large effect size of ρ = .57, 95% CI [.51, .62]; second, the overall L2 grit exhibited no less predictive power than each facet alone. Results suggest that L2 grit could be regarded as a hierarchical construct above PE and CI in the language learning context. Implications of the present study and future study directions were discussed.