Creativity and epistemic beliefs are important topics in both psychological and educational research. Despite the long history of research on each of these intrinsically related topics, little work has been done to connect the theories about them. Inspired by the 4C theory of creativity, this study investigated the effects of epistemic beliefs on creativity and the mediation of intellectual risk-taking. The subjects were 659 undergraduates in a university in Hong Kong. The findings revealed that (i) intellectual risk-taking was a strong and positive predictor of creativity; (ii) the certainty dimension of epistemic beliefs was a negative and significant predictor of both intellectual risk-taking and creativity, whereas the complexity dimension was a positive and significant predictor of both; (iii) the source dimension had an indirect positive impact on creativity mediated by intellectual risk-taking; and (iv) the justification dimension had a direct positive impact on creativity. By synthesising the conclusions from this study and the theory of epistemic development, a two-way model was generated to illustrate the undergraduates’ epistemic beliefs and their relationships with creativity. The findings of this study indicated that a dialectical belief of knowledge as human creation might be the most beneficial for undergraduates to develop their creativity. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

Although encouraging student creativity is a commonly recognised goal of STEM education, there is a lack of research in this area. In this study, the effects of epistemic beliefs on STEM creativity and the mediation of intellectual risk-taking were investigated. The subjects were 461 primary students in Hong Kong. The findings revealed that (i) intellectual risk-taking was a significant and positive predictor of STEM creativity; (ii) the certainty and justification dimensions of epistemic beliefs had direct, negative and significant impacts on STEM creativity; and (iii) the complexity dimension of epistemic beliefs had both direct and indirect significantly positive impacts on STEM creativity, and the indirect impacts were mediated by intellectual risk-taking. This study revealed the complicated relationships between different orientations in epistemic beliefs and STEM creativity, which include both constraining and facilitating effects, and both direct and indirect impacts. We argue that although reducing naïve and relativistic epistemic beliefs is essential for the development of creativity in STEM education, the effects of cultivating mature epistemic beliefs may not be sufficient. Further direct and explicit approaches are required to more effectively enhance students’ STEM creativity. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.