Creativity and Academic Achievement: An Investigation of Gender Differences

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the possible relation between creativity and academic achievement, in particular, to see if this relation might be different for boys and girls. The 2 research questions were (a) What is the relation between different aspects of creativity and different subject areas of academic achievement?, and (6) Are there any differences for boys and girls in terms of the relation between different aspects of creativity and different subject areas of academic achievement? The students were from 68 schools randomly selected from the Basque County, Spain. Among these 2,264 students, 38% were boys and 62% were girls. Three creativity batteries, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance O'Neil, Abedi, & Spielberger, 1994), and the Villa and Auzmendi Creativity Test (VAT Auzmendi, Villa, & Abedi, 1996), were administered to the students. Teachers were also asked to rate students' creativity. Academic achievement was operationalized by students 'self-report of their achievement in 6subject areas: Spanish, Basque, English, natural science, social science, and mathematics. By canonical correlation analysis, the following results were found: If operationalized by the teachers' ratings, creativity was related to academic achievement for both boys and girls. For boys, Flexibility was the predominant factor that related to all 6 academic subject areas. For girls, Elaboration related to 4 of the academic subject areas (Spanish, Basque, English, and social science), and Fluency related to natural science and mathematics. If operationalized by the other 3 measures (TTCT, CT and VAT), however, creativity was barely related to academic achievement. Implications of the results for research in creativity and education are discussed.