Revisiting educational assumptions: The surprising negative link between creative extracurricular activities and...

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• International Comparative Studies

Background:

• The 2022 PISA creative thinking report indicated a surprising negative association between student creative thinking performance and engagement in creative activities.
• This contradicts the general understanding that skill development stems from relevant practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the negative association between creative activities and creative thinking is linear.
• To determine if this association persists across different countries.
• To examine if psychological and contextual moderators influence this relationship.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the PISA 2022 creative thinking assessment.
• Included a large analytical sample of 372,193 students from 49 countries.
• Employed correlation analysis and multiple regression, controlling for psychosocial and contextual factors.

Main Results:

• A negative correlation was found between creative thinking and both in-school (r = -0.25) and out-of-school (r = -0.32) activities, consistent across most countries.
• These activities remained negative predictors of creative performance after controlling for other variables (β = -0.06 and β = -0.27).
• Openness to intellect and creative self-efficacy moderated the negative association for out-of-school activities, showing positive links. Feeling safe at school also moderated in-school activities.

Conclusions:

• The findings suggest that current creative activities may require restructuring to effectively support student creativity.
• There is a need for continued refinement of creativity assessment measures.
• Psychological and contextual factors play a role in moderating the impact of creative activities on performance.