Developmental trends of different creative potentials in relation to adolescents’ critical thinking abilities

•Developmental relationship between creativity and critical thinking is inspected.•Open- versus closed-ended creativities exhibit different developmental trends.•Critical thinking significantly contributes to closed- but not open-ended creativity. Although creativity and critical thinking are two of the 4C skills for 21st-century students, little is known about their relationship from a developmental perspective. It is also suggested that different creativity measures should be distinguished and compared. Based on cognitive theoretical views, this study predicts and investigates the different developmental trends of open-ended versus closed-ended creative potentials in relation to adolescents’ critical thinking abilities. We recruited 312 junior high and high school students from Grade 7 to Grade 11 for testing on open-ended creativity, closed-ended creativity, and critical thinking. After we controlled for the socioeconomic status variable, the results showed that open-ended creativity indices revealed a mostly steady trajectory across grades, while closed-ended creativity and critical thinking performances both exhibited a prominent ascending trend. The path analysis results further demonstrated a significant 39.2% variance of closed-ended creativity performances for which critical thinking accounted, but only 3% for open-ended creativity. These empirical results support the theoretical predictions, suggest future studies that may arise, and can help design appropriate training projects to enhance adolescents’ different creativities and critical thinking.