Teachers sustainable teaching innovation and graduate students creative thinking: The chain mediating role of playfulness climate and academic self-efficacy

Creative thinking is a core higher-order cognitive abilities in the 21st century, which reflects a country's competitiveness. This study used structural equation modeling and bootstrap method to explore the relationship between teachers' sustainable teaching innovation and graduate students' creative thinking based on a survey of 1210 Chinese graduate students. The study further revealed the mediating mechanism between playfulness climate and academic self-efficacy. The results indicated that (1) Teacher sustainable teaching innovation was positively associated with graduate students' creative thinking; (2) Playfulness climate mediated the significant effect between teachers' sustainable teaching innovations and graduate students' creative thinking, and the mediating effect of playfulness climate is 14.3%; (3) Academic self-efficiency mediators the relationship between sustainable teaching innovation and graduate students' creative thinking is supported, the mediating effect ratio of academic self-efficacy is 50.8%; (4) Playfulness climate and academic self-efficacy play a chain mediating role between the relationship of sustainable teaching innovation and graduate students' creative thinking. The chain mediation accounted for 8.9% of total effect; (5) In terms of gender difference, the playfulness climate had a positive impact on creative thinking in male students, but not significantly in female.