Creativity correlates strongly with mathematics achievement in school (r = .47), more so in elementary than in high school¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r3 · q3 · i3 large · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants)
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Creativity, mostly measured as divergent thinking, correlates r = .47 with mathematics achievement in school (Bicer et al. 2021, k = 30, n = 11,418). These are correlations compiled across meta-analyses: they describe how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not what causes it.

Subclaims¶

q3 i3 Creativity, mostly measured as divergent thinking, correlates r = .47 with mathematics achievement in school (Bicer et al. 2021, k = 30, n = 11,418). → Breit et al. 2025

Evidence¶

Breit et al. 2025¶

Breit, M., Schneider, M., & Preckel, F. (2025). Mathematics achievement and learner characteristics: A systematic review of meta-analyses. Learning and Individual Differences, 118, 102621. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102621

q3 · systematic review of meta-analyses · i3 · large effect, r = .47 (k = 30) · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants) · review · r3

The review compiles zero-order correlations from published meta-analyses (each with at least ten effect sizes, the largest one kept where several covered a variable), found by a systematic PsycINFO search in July 2024. It pools nothing further and controls for nothing: many of these characteristics correlate with one another, so a correlation here says how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not that it causes it. Creativity r = .47 (Bicer et al. 2021, 30 effect sizes, 11,418 school students, I² = .93); r = .51 in elementary and middle school against .39 in high school.

Discussion¶

The authors call the size surprising, since creativity is usually stressed at later stages of talent development, and note that divergent thinking (many solutions) and convergent thinking (one solution) both seem to be needed in mathematical problem solving. The correlation is stronger in mathematics than in Hattie's cross-domain synthesis.

Learner Variables¶

• Creativity — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Mathematics achievement correlates more strongly with learners' knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities than with their personality traits, goals or emotions
• General and fluid intelligence correlate strongly with mathematics achievement (r = .41 to .62), and the fluid-intelligence correlation is larger in older samples — related