Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Problem-Solving Self-Efficacy, Critical Thinking Disposition, and Mathematical Creativity Self-Efficacy: A Cross-Sectional Path Analytic Study

Developing flexible thinking, generating alternative solution strategies, and producing original ideas are increasingly emphasized in mathematics education. This study examines the relationships among preservice elementary mathematics teachers’ problem-solving self-efficacy, critical thinking disposition, and mathematical creativity self-efficacy. Drawing on a theoretically informed framework, it specifically investigates whether critical thinking disposition statistically mediates the association between problem-solving self-efficacy and mathematical creativity self-efficacy. Data were collected from 554 preservice elementary mathematics teachers. Analyses included descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and bootstrap-based observed-variable path analysis to obtain robust estimates of direct and indirect associations. Findings indicated that positive problem-solving self-efficacy was strongly associated with critical thinking disposition, which was, in turn, positively associated with mathematical creativity self-efficacy. Critical thinking disposition also statistically mediated the association between problem-solving self-efficacy and mathematical creativity self-efficacy. A reverse-direction model showed comparably good overall fit, indicating that the observed data were also compatible with an alternative directional ordering. These findings suggest that problem-solving self-efficacy and critical thinking disposition represent complementary cognitive-affective constructs that are empirically associated with perceptions of mathematical creativity. Given the cross-sectional design, the findings should not be interpreted as evidence of causal direction. The results instead provide empirical support for a theoretically motivated model of the associations among problem-solving self-efficacy, critical thinking disposition, and mathematical creativity self-efficacy.