The Reciprocal Relationships between Self-Directed Learning Ability, Career Maturity, and Creativity: An Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis for Longitudinal Data

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the longitudinal causal associations between self-directed learning ability, career maturity, and creativity over three annual waves.
 Methods The present study used panel datasets spanning three years from the Seoul Education Longitudinal Study (SELS). Three waves of panel data collected from Year 7 (first grade of high school), Year 8 (second grade), and Year 9 (third grade) from 2016 to 2018 were assessed by means of autoregressive cross-lagged modeling.
 Results The findings proved the autoregressive effects and cross-lagged effects between self-directed learning ability, career maturity, and creativity, The autoregressive effects of self-directed learning ability, career maturity, and creativity maintained moderately stable over time. Specifically, these results indicate that higher levels of self-directed learning ability at the previous time was associated with higher levels of self-directed learning ability at the subsequent time, and similarly for career maturity or creativity. Next, cross-lagged analysis revealed that self-directed learning ability was a significantly positive predictor of career maturity across time, and vice versa. In addition, career maturity was a significantly positive predictor of creativity indicating reciprocal relationships, and vice versa. However, self-directed learning ability positively predicted creativity, whereas creativity negatively predicted self-directed learning ability over time.
 Conclusions The current research is the first to address the reciprocal relationships between self-directed learning ability, career maturity, and creativity across time, using a three-wave cross-lagged panel model approach. The results supported the longitudinal causal model in which latent variables had a positive or negative cross-lagged effect on each other. The findings could be used to develop educational initiatives dedicated to students. The results were discussed in the light of the theoretical and practical implications.