A Review of Influential Factors Affecting Undergraduate Students' Creative Thinking

ABSTRACT: Creative thinking was listed among the skills that are required for upcoming graduating students’ entry-level careers which become more important to global industries. Due to the importance of this concept, the need to investigate undergraduate students’ creative thinking has been rising. This article presents an overview of influential factors on undergraduate students’ creative thinking. The influential factors were reviewed in two main aspects – contextual and individual levels. Researchers have investigated the relationship between educational setting and parental factors affecting creative thinking in the contextual aspect, while in the individual level aspect, researcher has investigated the relationship between intelligence and personality affecting creative thinking. Based on various recent studies and related theories, key factors that influence undergraduate students’ creative thinking are outlined along with a proposed conceptual framework. In the future, establishing and testing the proposed conceptual framework in terms of defining the influential paths and key factors affecting creative thinking will be conducted.

KEYWORDS: Creative thinking, Educational setting, Intelligence, Parental factors, Personality