Revisiting creativity and critical thinking through content analysis

As essential 21st century skills, creativity and critical thinking have garnered the attention of educators and researchers. The aim of this research was to investigate the nature of the relationship between these two essential skills through a content analysis of past empirical studies. Twenty-seven peer-reviewed journal articles were selected for a systematic review. The selection criteria include the utilization of psychometrically valid and reliable creativity and critical thinking measure and the report of either a correlation between measures of creativity and critical thinking or a report of effect size of intervention program on the development of creativity and critical thinking. The results of the study revealed that the correlation between the two ranged from non-significant to large, depending on the nature of the study. Two factors influenced the degree of correlation: the type of measurements used and the demographic of the participants (e.g., age and country of origin of the participants). Results also revealed that fostering creativity and critical thinking simultaneously is possible but the development of each skill can vary. Implications are discussed.