Grit is important for deliberate practice, motivation, sports performance prediction, and achievements in sports (Fawver et al., 2020; Cormier et al., 2021; Mosewich et al., 2021). Grit, a personality characteristic positively affecting goal achievement and long-term success, reflects passion and persistence for long-term goals. Besides, independent of cognitive ability, it can encourage individuals to work hard and adhere to long-term goals (Duckworth et al., 2007; DiMenichi and Richmond, 2015). Grit includes two aspects: Consistency of interests (CI) reflects the individual’s long-term grit tendency toward goals; persistence of effort (PE) refers to the individual’s tendency to spend more time and energy to achieve long-term goals even when facing setbacks (Duckworth et al., 2007). Students’ motivation, passion, and interest in specific academic backgrounds are related to learning content (Ryan and Deci, 2000; Ulstad et al., 2016). Athletes carry out sports activities in learning and training environments. Physical education, different from other education, is mainly reflected in the physical components of the education process (Guelmami et al., 2022). Therefore, measuring athletes’ grit should focus on the special education background and content. Grit positively affects athletes, while high-level grit is related to psychological factors such as burnout reduction (DeCouto et al., 2019), negative emotions (Doorley, 2021), optimism (Olefir, 2018), perfectionism (Martin, 2018; Fawver et al., 2020), instantaneous positive influence (Rumbold et al., 2022), specific hopes and positive emotions of sports goals (Doorley, 2021), and lower physical anxiety (Auerbach, 2018). Physical education grit can affect athletes’ psychological factors, sports performance, and achievements in specific sports. Therefore, relevant research should be strengthened.

Many tools can measure grit. Grit-O and Grit-S scales developed by Duckworth et al. (2007) and Duckworth and Quinn (2009) are the most widely used and have been revised in many countries. Researchers in the context of pedagogy have developed different measurement tools, such as the Grit Scale for Children and Adults (Sturman and Zappala-Piemme, 2017) and Academic Grit Scale (Clark and Malecki, 2019). Subsequent research develops the Grit Psychological Resources Scale (Schimschal et al., 2022) using the nursing environment, the Triarchic Model of Grit Scale (Datu et al., 2017), and the Multi-Dimensional Scale of Grit (Singh and Chukkali, 2021) based on the socialist environment to evaluate grit. Guelmami et al. (2022) develop the PE-Grit specifically designed to measure the sports field. The PE-Grit is verified in the Arabic version and translated into the English version simultaneously. It consists of Physical Grit (PH) and Academic Grit (AC) and has four dimensions: physical interest (PHI), academic interest (ACI), physical effort (PHE), and academic effort (ACE). Grit has a complex structure. The Grit Scale for Children and Adults is a single-factor scale that cannot measure grit in sports (Sturman and Zappala-Piemme, 2017). The Academic Grit Scale, not including interest and physical input, cannot assess grid in physical education (Guelmami et al., 2022). Compared with the two dimensions of Grit-O and Grit-S, the PE-Grit is refined into physical and academic to measure athletes’ grit. Therefore, Guelmami et al. (2022) conducted a reliability and validity test to verify PE-Grit. Cronbach’s α of the four sub-dimensions is between 0.83 and 0.86, indicating the good consistency of the scale. KMO = 0.88 in the exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to analyze three different models. Two subscales and four-dimensional third-order factor models, namely Physical Grit (PHI and PHE) and Academic Grit (ACI and ACE), are obtained by calculating the optimal fit index with good construct validity. González-Bernal et al. (2022) verified it in Spanish middle school physical education teaching. Cronbach’s α of four dimensions is 0.81, 0.83, 0.78, and 0.82, which has good construct validity.

Self-control is positively correlated with grit (Toering and Jordet, 2015; Olefir, 2018; Shields et al., 2018; Tedesqui and Young, 2018). Low grit indicates a high anxiety disorder score (Crane et al., 2020). Grit is a personality resource to overcome anxiety in sports if combined with self-efficacy, self-control, and optimism (Olefir, 2018). The PE-Grit, developed based on Grit-S, Grit-O, and Academic Grit Scale, is assumed to be positively related to Grit-S and self-control.

Currently, researchers do not deeply study grit in physical education in China. Although the adaptability of the PE-Grit has been verified in Arabic and Spanish, it has not been revised for Chinese athletes. The work aimed to bring the PE-Grit scale from the English context to the Chinese context and the athlete context of sports. Then, the PE-Grit for Chinese athletes was developed by verifying its reliability and validity among athletes.

The work revised the PE-Grit that was suitable for Chinese athletes. Sixteen items of the questionnaire had good item discrimination after item analysis. Cronbach’s α of PH and AC subscales was 0.845 and 0.758, respectively; Cronbach’s α of PHI, ACI, PHE, and ACE was 0.865, 0.827, 0.833, and 0.751, respectively; Cronbach’s α of the total scale was 0.849. Cronbach’s coefficient α of PH and AC Subscales was 0.889 and 0.863 after retest reliability, respectively; Cronbach’s α of PHI, ACI, PHE, and ACE was 0.903, 0.878, 0.888, and 0.858, respectively; Cronbach’s α of the total scale was 0.920, which reached the psychometric properties.

Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the internal structure and items’ number of the revised questionnaire were the same as those of the original. The standardized load coefficients of the items on the corresponding subscales were greater than 0.40, with χ²/df less than 3, CFI and TFI greater than 0.90, and RMSEA and SRMR less than 0.08. Fit indices met the psychometrics standard, indicating that the scale had a clear structure.

The work adopted the Grit-S and BSCS as questionnaires to test the correlation validity of the PE-Grit criteria, and PHI, ACI, PHE, and ACE were positively correlated with grit in the PE-Grit. Grit is passion and persistence for long-term goals (Duckworth et al., 2007), while grit in sports can promote professional skills’ development by prolonging the time to participate in and adhere to practical activities (Hodges et al., 2017). Physical education grit is the personality embodiment of grit in sports, so they are similar but with differences.

Besides, the work proved that the PE-Grit was positively correlated with self-control. Self-control refers to the willpower to suppress impulsive and short-term behavior, while grit refers to the years of effort required to achieve a life goal (Duckworth and Gross, 2014). Self-control is positively correlated with grit (Toering and Jordet, 2015; Olefir, 2018; Shields et al., 2018; Tedesqui and Young, 2018), that is, it is positively correlated with physical education grit. Therefore, the revised athletes’ PE-Grit has good reliability and validity and can evaluate Chinese athletes’ physical education grit.

The work has some limitations: (1) PE-Grit was only tested among Chinese athletes, without considering age groups, so subsequent research should supplement this verification. (2) Gender and sports training background are not controlled, so subsequent research can explore the differences in physical education grit by gender. (3) Since the questionnaire background is a Western culture, subsequent research can develop a scale with Chinese characteristics to measure grit in sports.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Shenyang Institute of Physical Education. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s), and minor(s)’ legal guardian/next of kin, for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

RZ reviewed the literature and wrote the manuscript. RZ and SG collected and analyzed data. RZ and GD outlined the structure of the manuscript, reviewed the literature, and wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.