Examining the Interrelationships Among Curiosity, Creativity, and Academic Motivation Using Students in High Schools: A Multivariate Analysis Approach

1 Introduction

Learning requires curiosity, creativity, and motivation on the part of students. Surprisingly, curiosity, creativity, and motivation are not only a feature of students’ learning but also parts of the instructional practices of teachers in the learning environment. By nature, students are curious and through curiosity, students can be creative and become motivated in learning situations. According to Kashdan and Silvia (2009), curiosity is the appreciation, quest, and strong need to discover unique, stimulating, and undefined situations. When people become curious, they become conscious and approach situations with zeal and might engage in their current phenomenon. Curiosity as a psychological construct has an internal underpinning but manifested externally by people. The internal nature of curiosity becomes evident when the innate push makes visible signs of exploration in people (e.g., performance). Curiosity is an indispensable construct in teaching and learning. For instance, Coleman (2014), Litman and Jimerson (2004), and Pekrun (2019, 2011) indicated that curiosity allows students to own their expeditions, which closely correlates with the magnitude and worth of their learning processes.

Creativity is noted to be a psychological construct, which is a pathway of inheritances that regulate progress, opens human competence, and allows it to succeed (Alfuhaigi, 2015). Creativity, according to Dineen, Samuel, and Livesey (2005), is a process of generating a consequence that is innovative or unique and applicable or appreciated. Hoffman and Holzhuter (2012) posited that creativity looks like a modification, where organisms advance to strive for sustenance. It has been argued that when institutions accept, encourage, and support creativity with a course of action, it may serve as a response to employment-related problems and the struggle for superiority (Lucas, Claxton, & Spencer, 2013). This argument suggests that for an individual, a nation, and humankind to survive and progress, the growth of creativity is indispensable. According to Serdyukov (2017), the call for educational creativity has developed tremendously because many countries hold the view that social and economic well-being depends on the extent of quality education among their citizens. McWilliam (2007) noted that the current mainstream teaching methodological practices in education focus on retrieving information and exhausting them in explaining expected difficulties or comprehensive foreseeable and repetitive relations of one kind absorbed, instead of understanding the areas of concern in education. This development remains for more than a decade despite the narrow lifespan of disciplinary knowledge.

Motivation as a hypothetical construct is used to describe the start, path, force, and persistence of behaviour, especially goal-directed behaviour (Maehr & Meyer as cited in Dramanu & Mohammed, 2017). Likewise, in the classroom situation, motivation is used to elucidate the degree to which students devote attention and effort to various pursuits that may or may not be the ones desired by teachers (Brophy as cited in Dramanu & Mohammed, 2017). Researchers such as Bandalos, Geske, and Finney (2003), Chemers, Hu, and Garcia (2001), and Senko and Harackiewicz (2005) argued that students’ desired goals, concern for subjects, and feat prospects as components of motivation that are linked to students’ academic performance. According to Sharma and Sharma (2018), motivation is about engagements, wishes, and desires because it helps in directing behaviour towards a goal. Academically, motivation concerns itself with the process towards achievement rather than the results. In explaining the value of motivation in education, Adamma, Ekwutosim, and Unamba (2018), Elliot and Dweck (2005), and Muola (2010) indicated that nurturing learning and maintaining motivation among students should be a prime area for every teacher because it is an integral part in the overall performance of students. Akhtar, Iqbal, and Tatlah (2017) indicated that motivated students are those who take charge of knowledge development and serve as the fulcrum through which learning is enhanced. Students’ urge to learn is possible due to how motivated they are, as this becomes an aspirational push for academic excellence (Gupta & Mili, 2016).

In exploring constellation factors of success in learning situations, it is clear that curiosity, creativity, and motivation are complementary in nature and bring to bear positive learning outcomes among students. These factors are argued to bring about high imagination and novel outcomes among learners. For instance, Akhtar, Tatlah, and Iqbal (2018) alleged that curious, creative, and motivated students are those who perform better academically. According to Sansone and Smith (2000), as students’ become curious, creative, and motivated, they pay more attention to the learning process, exert a deeper level of understanding, retain information better, and can persevere in diverse learning tasks until the goals they set are met.

A sense of curiosity has been suggested as a necessary but not sufficient condition for creativity, in that, curiosity may enhance the desire to engage in creative behaviours but creativity cannot be more visible in learners than a sense of curiosity (Collins, Litman, & Spielberger, 2004). Recently, it has been discovered that curiosity has an impact on the generation stage of the creative process (Harrison & Dossinger, 2017). Researchers appear to establish a positive link between curiosity and intrinsic motivation (Hong-Keung, Man-Shan, & Lai-Fong, 2012). For example, Litman (2005) and Shroff, Vogel, and Coombes (2008) revealed that curiosity was positively related to intrinsic motivation. In this regard, curiosity can be labelled as a driving force behind the desire to explore and engage with new ideas or challenges. When students become curious, they are naturally more inclined to invest time and effort in an activity. In the context of creativity, this could mean that curious students are more likely to persist in the face of challenges, explore different avenues, and derive satisfaction from the act of generating ideas itself. This intrinsic motivation, fuelled by curiosity could lead to a more productive and innovative generation stage in the creative process. The findings of Hon-Keung et al. (2012) study were similar to a study conducted in Shiraz by Zare, Jamshidi, Rastegar, and Jahromi (2011) concerning the relationship between creativity and achievement motivation in entrepreneurship. The study revealed that a significant positive relationship existed between creativity and achievement motivation. The findings further showed that creativity predicted 93% of the variance of achievement-motivation in entrepreneurship of high school students in Shiraz.

Ainley, Hidi, and Berndorff (2002) noted that curiosity and creativity have been established to inspire learners and eventually result in better academic performance. Durik and Harackiewicz (2007) found a positive relationship between curiosity, creativity, and motivational concepts such as engagement, perceived competence, and cognitive processing. Shin and Kim (2019) indicated that the link between curiosity and creativity has long been acknowledged. For instance, Day and Langevin (as cited in Shin & Kim, 2019) projected that curiosity and intelligence power creativity, and Maw and Maw (as cited in Shin & Kim, 2019) similarly established that there exists a significant relationship between curiosity and creativity among students. Shin and Kim (2019) explained that highly curious students exhibit adaptive and creative thinking abilities than those who are less curious. By exploring the role of curiosity in creative abilities of students, Karwowski (2012) study revealed a strong association between curiosity and creativity. Assertions and empirical evidence presented by Shin and Kim (2019) buttressed the findings of Kashdan and Fincham (2002). In their efficient examination of curiosity’s role in developing creative mental processes, creative personalities, and the production of creative works, Kashdan and Fincham (2002) noted that there was an urgent need to provoke and nurture curiosity in students because it could propel them to greater heights in their scholastic endeavours. In a similar manner, the study was conducted among 480 participants, and the results indicated that individual work-related curiosity was a positive predictor of worker creativity in terms of innovation and that creative divergent thinking mediated this relationship (Celik, Storme, Davila, & Myszkowski, 2016).

2 Methods

3 Results

3.1 Research Hypothesis 1: There will be Predictions Among (a) Curiosity, (b) Creativity, and (c) Motivation of Students in High Schools

The objective of testing this hypothesis was to establish a non-recursive statistical relationship among (a) curiosity, (b) creativity, and (c) motivation using regression. Multivariate regression was used for the prediction because it has the power to produce correlations and predictions among the variables, where each variable predicts the other. Before performing the regression test, the normality test, linearity, homoscedasticity, multicollinearity, and collinearity assumptions were certified as preliminary tests.

From Table 3, concerning the multicollinearity and collinearity assumption test, correlation coefficients of 0.385–0.546 were produced, while collinearity statistics produced variance inflation factors (VIFs) between 1 and 10 for all variable pairings, and this signifies that there were fewer issues regarding collinearity and multicollinearity (Pallant, 2016). After satisfying the assumptions, the regression test results are presented in Table 4.

Table 3

Multicollinearity and collinearity assumptions for curiosity, creativity, and motivation

Variable	Collinearity statistics
First test	Tolerance	Variance inflation factor
Curiosity	0.770	1.299
Creativity	0.770	1.299
Second test	Tolerance	Variance inflation factor
Curiosity	0.677	1.477
Motivation	0.677	1.477
Third test	Tolerance	Variance inflation factor
Creativity	0.634	1.575
Motivation	0.634	1.575

First dependent = motivation; Second dependent = Creativity; Third dependent = Curiosity.

Table 4

Regression results on curiosity, creativity, and motivation pairings

Variable	B	SE	β	R	T	R 2	AdR 2	F	p
First pairing test
Creativity	0.218	0.048	0.199	0.385	4.51	0.230	0.227	84.45	0.000
Curiosity	0.315	0.041	0.341	0.450	7.45	0.230	0.227	84.45	0.000
Second pairing test
Curiosity	0.393	0.033	0.468	0.546	13.1	0.323	0.320	134.6	0.000
Motivation	0.159	0.035	0.175	0.385	4.51	0.323	0.320	134.6	0.000
Third pairing test
Motivation	0.305	0.039	0.281	0.450	7.75	0.366	0.363	162.9	0.000
Creativity	0.520	0.043	0.438	0.546	12.1	0.366	0.363	162.9	0.000

^*First dependent = Motivation; *Second dependent = Creativity; *Third dependent = Curiosity.

Table 4 indicates the results of the regression analysis of curiosity, creativity, and motivation pairings. In the first pairing of curiosity and creativity as predictors of motivation, the results show that there were moderate positive relationships between students’ creativity and motivation (r = 0.385) and students’ curiosity and motivation (r = 0.450). The results of the regression indicated that students’ creativity and curiosity explained 23.0% of the variance in their motivation (R ² = 0.230, F (2, 565) = 84.45, p < 0.000). It was found that students’ creativity significantly predicted students’ motivation (β = 0.199, p < 0.000), and students’ curiosity significantly predicted students’ motivation (β = 0.341, p < 0.000). Looking at these findings, it was evident that students’ curiosity predicted their motivation more than students’ creativity. The results imply that a unit increase in either students’ curiosity or creativity will lead to an increase in their motivation, but this increase will be more for curiosity against motivation than creativity against motivation. For the effect size contribution of students’ creativity and curiosity to their motivation, the results revealed an effect size of 0.30, which was moderate using Cohen’s (1988) formula. For example, f ² = R ²/1 – R ² = 0.230/1 – 0.230 = 0.230/0.77 = 0.30. These imply that the strength of the relationship among students’ curiosity, creativity, and motivation was average.

In the second pairing of curiosity and motivation as predictors of creativity, the results show that there were moderate positive relationships between students’ curiosity and creativity (r = 0.546) and students’ motivation and creativity (r = 0.385). The results of the regression indicated that students’ curiosity and motivation explained 32.3% of the variance in their creativity (R ² = 0.323, F (2, 565) = 134.61, p < 0.000). It was found that students’ curiosity significantly predicted students’ creativity (β = 0.468, p < 0.000), and students’ motivation significantly predicted students’ creativity (β = 0.175, p < 0.000). Looking at these findings, it was evident that students’ curiosity predicted their creativity more than students’ motivation. The results mean that a unit increase in either students’ curiosity or motivation will lead to an increase in their creativity, but this increase will be more for curiosity against creativity than motivation against creativity. For the effect size contribution of students’ curiosity and motivation to their creativity, the results revealed an effect size of 0.48, which was large using Cohen’s (1988) formula. For example, f ² = R ²/1 – R ² = 0.323/1 – 0.323 = 0.323/0.68 = 0.48. These imply that the strength of the relationship among students’ curiosity, motivation, and creativity was high.

In the third pairing of creativity and motivation as predictors of curiosity, the results show that there was a moderate positive relationship between students’ creativity and curiosity (r = 0.546) and students’ motivation and curiosity (r = 0.450). The results of the regression indicated that students’ creativity and motivation explained 36.6% of the variance in their curiosity (R ² = 0.366, F (2, 565) = 162.89, p < 0.000). It was found that students’ creativity significantly predicted students’ curiosity (β = 0.438, p < 0.000), and students’ motivation significantly predicted students’ curiosity (β = 0.281, p < 0.000). Based on these findings, it was evident that students’ creativity predicted their curiosity more than students’ motivation. The results mean that a unit increase in students’ creativity or motivation will lead to an increase in their curiosity, but this increase will be more for creativity against curiosity than motivation against curiosity. For the effect size contribution of students’ curiosity and motivation to their creativity, the results revealed an effect size of 0.58, which was large using Cohen’s (1988) formula. For example, f ² = R ²/1 – R ² = 0.366/1 – 0.366 = 0.366/0.63 = 0.58. These imply that the strength of the relationship among students’ curiosity, motivation, and creativity was high. The findings are presented with a conceptual model in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Curiosity, creativity, and motivation model.

Figure 1 indicates the predictive ability among the latent constructs. It revealed that curiosity predicted better on creativity and motivation. It means that curiosity can propel students to become creative and motivated in school work. The implication is that curiosity is an important component of students’ academic lives as it could invoke their ability to become creative and motivated in their academic work.

4 Discussion

The hypothesis aimed at testing the predictive abilities among curiosity, creativity, and motivation as innate potentials of students. In the testing process, curiosity and creativity were paired against motivation (test 1), curiosity and motivation were paired against creativity (test 2), and creativity and motivation were paired against curiosity. In test 1, the study revealed that curiosity predicted motivation better than creativity. This suggests that curious ability in students can lead them to become more motivated than their creative ability. Presumably, nurturing curiosity among students will help them to become motivated in their academic pursuits because the more curious they are, the more motivated they become. This finding suggests that curiosity is a major aspect of students’ success. When students are presented with the opportunity to investigate their environment through teachers’ guide, they are likely to uncover the knowledge that was hidden and use such knowledge for their academic and social lives.

With creativity and its prediction on motivation, students can be inspired by their creative products (innovation). Once they are able to produce novel things, the tendency for them to be motivated to pursue other areas of their academic work would be high. Both curiosity and creativity finding produced a moderate effect size for motivation. This confirms the assertion that curiosity and creativity work directly or indirectly to motivate students in academic surroundings (Shin & Kim, 2019). Also, the finding buttresses the view by Ainley et al. (2002) that curiosity and creativity inspire learners to perform better academically. With this effect size, it means that the relationship between creativity and motivation was never low nor high but appreciable (Cohen, 1988).

In the second test, the study revealed that curiosity significantly predicted students’ creativity and students’ motivation significantly predicted students’ creativity; however, curiosity was a better predictor of creativity than motivation. This means that as students become curious, they are likely to become creative and eventually become innovative than they become motivated. Unsurprisingly, students’ quest for knowledge is a natural and necessary condition for success. So, when students are given the opportunity to explore or investigate their academic environments purposely, it will help them to be creative way, where they could come up with novel products. Comparing the roles of curiosity and motivation in the creative abilities of students, curiosity is a major construct to be considered more than motivation because motivation can only be realised after students’ purposeful exploration produces creative behaviours that may be appreciated by students themselves or their teachers. Both curiosity and motivation produced a large effect size. With this effect size, it means that the relationship was strong. The finding of the current study supports the finding of a study conducted by Collins et al. (2004). In this study, creative behaviours and creative personality qualities were found to be associated with both forms of curiosity. A sense of curiosity has been suggested as a necessary but not sufficient condition for creativity in that curiosity may enhance the desire to engage in creative behaviours, but creativity cannot be more visible in learners than a sense of curiosity (Collins et al., 2004). Also, the finding of the current study confirms the finding of a study conducted by Celik et al. (2016). In this study, the researchers found that there was a correlation between curiosity and creativity exhibited by students.

In the third test, the study revealed that students’ creativity significantly predicted their curiosity and motivation, where creativity was a better predictor of curious abilities than students’ motivation. Presumably, it means that creativity can influence curiosity and as well motivation. Among students, it is possible that students’ ability to come up with new ideas that are helpful in their academic environment could improve upon their quest to search for new ideas. Again, students who are inspired from within or external sources are likely to engage in purposeful explorative behaviours, which may in turn help in their academic pursuits. It is important to note that both creativity and motivation have various roles to play in students’ quest to search for knowledge. However, such roles vary based on the immediate mental state of students. At a time where creativity is present, they may engage in curious behaviours more often, while at a time where motivation is present, they may engage in curious behaviours but less than when creativity was present. The finding of the current study confirmed the findings of Litman (2005) and Shroff et al. (2008). In their studies, students’ curiosity significantly predicted their motivation positively. Furthermore, the finding of the current study confirmed the findings of Hon-Keung et al. (2012). They found significant and positive predictions between curiosity and motivation of students, where higher levels of curiosity related positively to higher levels of motivation. Also, the finding of the current study confirmed the findings of Shin and Kim (2019), as they found highly curious students exhibiting creative thinking abilities, implying that curiosity predicts creativity in students. Furthermore, the finding supports that of Karwowski’s (2012), which revealed a strong positive relationship between curiosity and creativity: curiosity significantly predicted creativity among students. More so, the finding of the current study corroborates the findings of Kashdan and Fincham (2002), where they established that curiosity positively predicts creativity, where the nurturing curiosity in students could propel them to become creative in their lives. Again, the finding of the current study was congruent with the finding of Zare et al. (2011). They found that creativity positively and significantly predicted students’ achievement: creativity predicted 93% of the variance of achievement-motivation.

5 Conclusion

Students’ curious behaviours, creative abilities, and motivational orientations are related and complement one another in pursuit of academic goals, as revealed by the current study. The direction of the findings has created a platform for the paradigm. In this, the traditional studies that have often focused on exploring curiosity, creativity, and motivation as discrete entities, each offering valuable insights into students’ cognitive and affective dimensions, have been debunked for a good reason. While these studies have provided valuable foundational knowledge, they paint an incomplete picture of the complex dynamics at play within the educational landscape. The recent findings that students’ curious behaviours, creative abilities, and motivational orientations are interrelated and synergistically contribute to their academic endeavours mark a paradigm shift in how we perceive and investigate these constructs.

As students become curious, their creative abilities are energised, and they become motivated when creative products are realised. For this reason, it is important that their students’ curiosity is provoked; at the same time, their creative abilities are honed while their efforts are being reinforced so that they can achieve success in learning endeavours. Specifically, teachers and parents need to find appropriate pedagogical strategies that give room for students’ explorative behaviours to be exhibited, where students could be engaged in independent activities to realise their creativity and making an effort to reward the successes of the students in the process of acquiring knowledge.

6 Implication for Policy and Practice

It is recommended that organisations responsible for educational development collaborate with curriculum developers so that latent learner skills such as curiosity, creativity, and motivation can be harmonised with the required syllabus. In this direction, teachers can guide students to become curious, creative, and motivated in their learning expeditions without necessarily teaching the concepts to students as separate subject areas. Again, training programmes for in-service teachers and trainee teachers should be geared towards the inclusion of curiosity, creativity, and motivation to make it comprehensive for teachers as they engage students in teaching and learning activities in future. With this, teachers can become curious behaviours of their students through open-ended discussions that allow students to share their wonderings and curiosities, promoting a culture of inquiry in the classroom, develop their creative potential through project works where they choose an aspect of a subject that interests them, and inspire them by providing opportunities for self-assessment and reflection, allowing students to track their progress and celebrate milestones.

Furthermore, management of high schools should make efforts to develop holistic students to become more curious, creative, and motivated in pursuit of their academic goals. As psychologically oriented abilities, students need to be taught by their teachers how to improve their concentration; they should be allowed enough sleep to improve memory retention, taught how to be self-disciplined, encourage exercise, engage students in active learning, and teach meditation so that their general mental system can be enhanced. Also, schools can help develop students’ abilities in curiosity, creativity, and motivation by giving them less non-academic activities after school so that their minds can be engaged. Students on their part can be asked to engage in mental and physical exercises as these can help make every part of their brains active. Exercises allow the free flow of oxygen to vital parts of the brain and contribute to the improvement of cognitive skills, which are responsible for curiosity, creativity, and motivation (Lin & Kuo, 2013; Mikkelsen, Stojanovska, Polenakovic, Bosevski, & Apostolopoulos, 2017).