Social media use and student creativity: The mediating role of student engagement

Abstract

Fostering student creativity is widely accepted as an important goal in Chinese higher education, and social media is now integrated into students' everyday lives. I investigated how social media use in study contexts is related to students' engagement and creativity. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data from 652 undergraduate students at 3 Chinese public universities. Structural equation modeling results show that social media use in study contexts was related to student engagement and creativity, and that student engagement partially mediated the relationship between social media use and student creativity. This provides insight into how to promote student creativity. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are presented, and future directions for research are discussed.