The mediating role of cognitive flexibility in the relationship between creative thinking tendencies and problem-solving skills

In the study reported on here we aimed to investigate the mediating effect of pre-school teacher candidates’ cognitive flexibility between creative thinking tendencies and problem-solving skills. The relational model was used to examine the direct and mediation relationship between the variables. The sample consisted of 516 pre-school teacher candidates, 445 of whom were female and 71 male, studying at 16 universities in Türkiye. Three Likert-type scales were used in the research: the Marmara creative thinking tendencies scale, the problem-solving inventory and the cognitive flexibility scale. To analyse data, the Pearson moment correlation coefficient and Hayes process macro for the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were used through the SPSS-22 program to examine the relationship between the variables and to conduct the mediation analysis. The results show a moderate relationships between the creative thinking tendencies, problem-solving skills, and cognitive flexibility of pre-school teacher candidates. Cognitive flexibility also played a mediating role between creative thinking tendencies and problem-solving skills. According to these results, creative thinking tendencies and cognitive flexibility variables together explain 35% of the change in problem-solving skills. Based on the results, some suggestions are made.