Characteristics explaining students’ creative behaviors in South Korea using random forest

Abstract

There is limited research that holistically explains the characteristics of creative students in nurturing creative behaviors. This lack of a holistic approach to studying creative behaviors may inhibit accounting for the tangled dynamics among explanatory variables. Thus, the present study examined personal and environmental characteristics that predicted creative behaviors using a random forest (RF) analysis in a large-scale dataset collected in South Korea. The responses of eighth graders (N = 6,546) to the 20 questions measuring creative behaviors were explained by 67 explanatory variables in an RF analysis. Results indicated that the top five variables were identified for predicting creative behaviors by two types of importance indices: civic engagement, self-regulation, information and communication technology skills, career maturity, and positive attitudes toward school/learning. Environmental characteristics did not appear in the top five variables, emphasizing the importance of personal characteristics in shaping student creative behaviors. Educational and theoretical implications are discussed, with suggestions for future research.