Exploring Factors in Creative Thinking of Students From PISA 2022 Taiwan Data
Author: Chia-Chun Hsiao (Halo Marketing Limited Company)
Vol.&No.：Vol. 71, No. 2
Date：June 2026
Pages：233-264
DOI：https://doi.org/10.6209/JORIES.202606_71(2).0008
Abstract：
Research motivation and purpose
This study is theoretically grounded in the COCO model and aligns it with variables available in the PISA database. A total of five variables were selected: curiosity, artistic inclination, scientific literacy, family encouragement, and the school creative environment, as key factors influencing students’ creative thinking.
First, in terms of personality traits, the study explores curiosity and artistic inclination, as these traits are less frequently discussed in the current literature but are included in the latest PISA dataset. In the domain of relevant knowledge, the study focuses on the crucial PISA construct of scientific literacy. For the role model or “gatekeeper” aspect, family encouragement is examined, while the environmental dimension is represented by the school creative environment.
Overall, the main objective of this research is to investigate the factors influencing creative thinking. Specifically, the goals are: 1. To understand the impact of curiosity on creative thinking; 2. To understand the impact of artistic inclination on creative thinking; 3. To understand the impact of scientific literacy on creative thinking; 4. To understand the impact of family encouragement on creative thinking; 5. To explore whether family encouragement moderates the relationship between personal factors (including curiosity, artistic inclination, and scientific literacy) and creative thinking; 6. To understand the impact of the school creative environment on creative thinking; 7. To examine whether the school creative environment moderates the relationship between personal factors (including curiosity, artistic inclination, and scientific literacy) and creative thinking.
Although this study is based on the COCO model, some adjustments have been made. While the ecological systems theory emphasizes the interaction of environmental factors, the original COCO model primarily discusses direct relationships between variables. Therefore, this study modifies the COCO model by treating family encouragement and school creative environment as moderating variables. It aims to explore whether these environmental factors interact with personal traits to influence creative thinking.
Literature Review
The literature review of this study consists of the following sections: 1. PISA’s assessment of creative thinking and recent related studies on creative thinking; 2. The influence of personal traits－ including curiosity, artistic inclination, scientific literacy, and gender– on creative thinking; 3. The direct and moderating effects of family encouragement on creative thinking; 4. The direct and moderating effects of the school creative environment on creative thinking. Based on the findings and discussions in these sections, seven research hypotheses were developed to align with the objectives of this study.
Method
This study utilizes data from the PISA database. The target population for PISA 2022 is defined by age and includes 15-year-old students currently enrolled in school. In Taiwan, the official testing period was from April 11 to May 27, 2022. However, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 188 out of the originally sampled 216 schools completed the assessment. Among these, 6 schools were excluded because their student attendance rate was below 33%. As a result, the final sample in Taiwan consisted of 182 schools and 5,857 students, which formed the analytical sample for this study. The research instruments included variables such as learning resources, school support, family assistance, learning self-efficacy, and urban-rural classification. Since students are nested within schools and all students share the same school-level creative environment, the school creative environment is treated as a higher-level (school-level) variable. In contrast, curiosity, artistic inclination, scientific literacy, family encouragement, and creative thinking are considered individual-level variables. Given this nested data structure, multilevel analysis is appropriate. The analysis was conducted using HLM software. In addition, AMOS 24.0 was used for analysis, and the maximum likelihood estimation method was employed.
Results
This study utilized data from the PISA 2022 database, selecting 182 schools in Taiwan with a total of 5,857 15-year-old students. It aimed to examine the direct effects of students’ personal traits– specifically curiosity, artistic inclination, and scientific literacy– as well as family encouragement and the shared school-level creative environment, on creative thinking. In addition, the study explored the moderating effect of family encouragement on the relationship between personal traits and creative thinking, as well as the cross-level moderating effect of the school creative environment on the same relationships. A total of seven hypotheses were developed. Based on the results from Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis, three key conclusions were drawn: 1. Curiosity, artistic inclination, and scientific literacy as personal traits of students have a positive effect on creative thinking. 2. Family encouragement has a direct effect on creative thinking and also plays a moderating role between personal traits and creative thinking. 3. The school creative environment has a direct effect on creative thinking and serves as a negative moderator in the relationship between scientific literacy and creative thinking.
Discussion and Suggestion
This study is grounded in the COCO model and aligns the framework with variables available in the PISA database. Based on this alignment, five key factors were selected for analysis: curiosity, artistic inclination, scientific literacy, family encouragement, and the school creative environment, all of which are examined for their influence on students’ creative thinking. Previous research has rarely integrated the four dimensions– personality traits, knowledge background, gatekeepers’ contextual support, and environmental dynamics– into a single comprehensive study. This research, by leveraging PISA’s large-scale data, confirms that curiosity, artistic inclination, scientific literacy, family encouragement, and school creative environment all have positive effects on students’ creative thinking. Moreover, the moderation analysis revealed that curiosity, artistic inclination, and family encouragement interact positively with one another to influence creative thinking. Interestingly, the school creative environment played a negative moderating role in the relationship between scientific literacy and creative thinking.
Compared with previous studies, multilevel analysis using large-scale data to explore creativity is still in its early stages. Therefore, this study offers a significantly different perspective. Notably, the finding that the school creative environment negatively moderates the positive relationship between scientific literacy and creative thinking is quite unexpected. Intuitively, one would assume that a higher level of school creativity would enhance students’ creative thinking. However, for students with higher scientific literacy, this pattern does not hold. Typically, students with higher scientific literacy are expected to also perform better in creative thinking. Yet, if they are in schools perceived (by administrators) to have high creative environments, this may actually diminish their creative performance. Does this imply that scientifically literate students do not need a highly creative school environment? Not necessarily. The researchers point out that the school creative environment used in this study is measured through questionnaires completed by school principals, reflecting the principals’ perception of the school’s creativity, not the students’ own perception. Thus, we cannot determine whether students themselves feel they are in a creative environment. This potential discrepancy between students’ and principals’ perceptions may require further in-depth investigation. In other words, it is not that high-scientific-literacy students do not need a creative environment, but rather that the creative atmosphere of the school may not be meeting their expectations or needs.
Based on the study’s findings and discussions, the following three concrete recommendations are proposed: 1. Practical strategies for families to encourage the development of students’ curiosity, artistic inclination, and scientific literacy. 2. School-level actions to enhance the creative environment and support students’ scientific literacy in order to foster creative thinking. 3. Suggestions for future research directions based on the study’s limitations.
Keywords：
curiosity, creative thinking, artistry