Quality of Life and its Relation to Creative Thinking among a Sample of Female Adolescents in Jeddah

Abstract

The study of subjective well-being in adolescence has had recent and dynamic growth, however, there are still few qualitative studies that contribute to getting to know about and discussing the sociocultural diversity of well-being, in particular ones that consider the socioeconomic status of the studied groups.

The purpose of this study is to prove that Quality of Life plays a large role in an individual’s Creative Thinking abilities.

Two hundred sixty-four female middle-school students (first, second and third grades) in Saudi Arabia, aged 12-15 were chosen randomly for participation in this study. The students were then subjected to Quality of Life Scale (QOL) and The Torrance Tests of Verbal Creative Thinking.

The results showed quite a few differences regarding the group’s Quality of Life and Creative Thinking Scores. There was a positive statistically significant correlation of 0.01 between the “family and social life”, “general health”, the total degree of Quality of Life perceived and Creative Thinking. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant correlation between “Time management” and the total and subscales of the Creative Thinking Scale. The results also showed that there is a statistically positive effect at 0.05 level of Quality of Life on Creative Thinking, where the value of the beta coefficient is 0.36 proving that Creative Thinking can be predicted by Quality of Life.

The findings suggest that the Quality of Life represented in home and school environments, and health in general does influence creative thinking in adolescents. These points raise important issues in relation to Creative Thinking by implying that fostering creative thinking of adolescents requires a suitable environment.