School-average teacher beliefs about creativity and students’ creative thinking: indirect associations through student-perceived creative pedagogies and creative self-efficacy

Teachers’ beliefs about creativity may be associated with students’ learning experiences and creative thinking. ​This study examined whether school-average teacher beliefs about creativity were associated with students’ creative thinking directly and indirectly through student-perceived creative pedagogies and creative self-efficacy. Using PISA 2022 data from 90,627 students in 4,159 schools across 15 education systems, this study applied weighted multilevel models to examine the relationships among school-average teacher beliefs about creativity, student-perceived creative pedagogies, creative self-efficacy, and creative thinking. Education-system differences were controlled in the creative thinking equation. Estimates from ten plausible values for creative thinking were combined using Rubin’s rules. The between-school indirect association through creative self-efficacy was positive (β = 0.041), as was the sequential indirect association through perceived creative pedagogies and creative self-efficacy (β = 0.018). Neither the direct association nor the indirect association through perceived creative pedagogies alone was statistically significant. The two positive indirect associations remained similar when the weighting method for the school teacher mean or the minimum number of teachers per school was changed. The findings indicate small positive indirect associations between teacher beliefs and student creative thinking, concentrated in paths that included creative self-efficacy. T​eacher education could address beliefs about creativity alongside practices that support students’ creative confidence and opportunities to explore and improve ideas. Longitudinal or intervention studies are needed to clarify the temporal order and potential causal relationships among these factors.