If someone tries their best but still raises a rotten child because they're just not good at parenting, do they deserve as much praise as someone who raised the same child to be a great man or woman?
Results should be looked at as a feedback mechanism to give you a reality check on your effort. If you gave it your all and still failed - what could you have done differently? Were you directing your effort at the things that are most important? Was it a goal worth doing in the first place? Could you have adjusted your actions to get a bigger payoff for your effort?
(And the parenting example is a good one. IMHO someone who does their best at raising a child with random genetic disorders like sociopathy, schizophrenia, or Down's Syndrome absolutely deserves as much praise as someone who raises a bright genetically-endowed child to be a great man or woman.)
That's not the question he asked. You're comparing parents who face different challenges. The question was about parents who face the same challenges, and both sets of parents put a lot of effort in, but one set is good at parenting and the other set is bad at parenting.
I would still respect the first set of parents. They did the best they could with what they had to work with. It's a sad situation though...in a perfect world effort would equal results, but the world ain't perfect.
It turns out that if the kid associates his/her self-image with being smart, they tend to avoid hard stuff later that they may not look so smart it. If you praise effort, their more likely to work hard a hard problems.
I believe you are incorrect in jumping to the conclusion that encouraging "results" would be superior to encouraging grit, effort and work. For one, the research is absent, and for another it makes the "how" incidental - whereas it is not.
My degree, for instance, is in part only as meaningful as the work I put into it. Lying, cheating and stealing my way towards it would not serve me in the long run.