The aims of this study were firstly to validate the structural relationships among creative mindset, goal orientation, creative self-efficacy and domains of creativity; secondly, to identify the mediating role of goal orientation and creative self-efficacy in the relation of creative mindset and domains creativity; thirdly, to investigate the difference of structural relationships between male students and female students. The research data were collected from 805 students from three universities in China and analyzed by SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 25.0. Firstly, the research model was examined by confirmatory factor analysis. Secondly, the structural relationships among the eight variables were validated by path analysis. Lastly the differences of structural relationships between male students and female students were examined by multi-group analysis
The following results were found. Firstly, growth creative mindset directly affect learning goal orientation, performance goal orientation, creative self-efficacy, scholarly creativity, science creativity, artistic creativity significantly and had a significantly indirect effect by learning goal orientation and creative self-efficacy on scholarly creativity, sciencel creativity and artistic creativity. Fixed creative mindset directly affect learning goal orientation, performance goal orientation, scholarly creativity, science creativity significantly and had a significantly indirect affect by performance goal orientation on science creativity and artistic creativity while it did not affect creative self-efficacy significantly.
Secondly, the mediating role of goal orientation and creative self-efficacy in the relation of creative mindset and domains creativity were found.
Thirdly, there some significant difference of the structural relationships between male students and female students. For male students, growth creative mindset had a positive directly affect on performance goal orientation while fixed creative mindset had a negative directly affect on learning goal orientation. Fixed creative mindset had little direct affect on science creativity, and had a significantly indirect effect by performance goal orientation on artistic creativity. For female students, although growth creative mindset had not affect on performance goal orientation and fixed creative mindset had not affect on learning goal orientation while fixed creative mindset had significantly direct affect on science creativity, and had significantly indirect affect on artistic creativity by performance goal orientation.
According to these results, some inspirations could be presented. In order to improve students creativity, college teachers are suggested to pay more attention to students' creative creative mindset, creative self-efficacy and goal orientation. In addition in different domains, creativity programs or strategies need to be adjusted appropriately for male students and female students.
For future research the following suggestions were put forward. Firstly, the research methods of questionnaire survey was used to evaluate students' creativity in this study while in future, expert evaluation methods are suggested to evaluate creativity productions. Secondly, five domains are studied in this research while other domains or subdivided domains could also be considered in future. Thirdly, only creative mindset, goal orientation, performance goal orientation, creative self-efficacy were examined in this study while in future studies emotions, environment and other factors that may have an effect on creativity could be analyzed. Finally, This research only selects students from Hebei Province, in the future the sample size should be expanded and students will be selected in more schools in other regions of China.