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Published on: September 11, 2021
Creative thinking and academic performance across cultures: Multilevel analyses based on PISA 2022
Yueling Wei1, Wang Zheng2, Yinqiu Zhao2
1School of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.
Background:
Creative thinking has been widely recognized as a potential contributor to improved academic performance. However, this association has not been systematically confirmed across culturally diverse societies.
Objective:
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between creative thinking and adolescents' academic performance, and to examine the moderating role of two cultural dimensions from the Minkov-Hofstede model: individualism-collectivism and flexibility-monumentalism.
Methods:
Using data from the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2022), multilevel analyses were conducted based on responses from 376,130 adolescents across 48 countries/regions.
Results:
The analyses revealed a significant positive relationship between creative thinking and academic performance on a global scale. Furthermore, this relationship was moderated by cultural values: in more individualistic societies, the academic benefits of creative thinking were stronger in reading, math and science; in more flexible societies, creative thinking was more strongly associated with math performance only.
Conclusions:
These findings highlight the importance of considering both individual factors and broader sociocultural contexts when examining adolescents' academic performance.
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