How should undergraduate students perceive knowledge as a product of human creation? Insights from a study on epistemic beliefs, intellectual risk-taking, and creativity

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10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Creativity and epistemic beliefs are important topics in both psychological and educational research. Despite the long history of research on each of these intrinsically related topics, little work has been done to connect the theories about them. Inspired by the 4C theory of creativity (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009), this study investigated the effects of epistemic beliefs on creativity and the mediation of intellectual risk-taking. The subjects were 659 undergraduates in a university in Hong Kong. The findings revealed that (i) intellectual risk-taking was a strong and positive predictor of creativity; (ii) the certainty dimension of epistemic beliefs was a negative and significant predictor of both intellectual risk-taking and creativity, whereas the complexity dimension was a positive and significant predictor of both; (iii) the source dimension had an indirect positive impact on creativity mediated by intellectual risk-taking; and (iv) the justification dimension had a direct positive impact on creativity. By synthesising the conclusions from this study and the theory of epistemic development proposed by Kuhn et al. (2000), a two-way model was generated to illustrate the undergraduates’ epistemic beliefs and their relationships with creativity. The findings of this study indicated that a dialectical belief of knowledge as human creation might be the most beneficial for undergraduates to develop their creativity. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish
Article number100786
JournalThinking Skills and Creativity
Volume39
Early online date12 Jan 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2021

Citation

Wan, Z. H., Lee, J. C.-K., & Hu, W. (2021). How should undergraduate students perceive knowledge as a product of human creation? Insights from a study on epistemic beliefs, intellectual risk-taking, and creativity. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 39. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2021.100786

Keywords

  • Epistemic beliefs
  • Intellectual risk-taking
  • Creativity
  • Undergraduate

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