A Structural Equation Model of Creative Problem-Solving Skill Based on Social Capital among University Students

The purpose of present research is to provide a structural model for creative problem-solving skill based on social capital among the students in Islamic Azad University, zones 8 and 12 in Iran The population included the whole students in zones 12 and 8 regions in Islamic Azad University. 1922 students were selected by cluster random sampling method. The research instruments were as follows: Whetten & Cameron's(2006) Creative Problem-Solving Skill questionnaire which consisted of 22 items with dimensions of logical problem-solving(Items 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), creative problem-solving(Items 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15), and developing innovation (Items 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22) with Cronbach's Alpha of 0.82; and a questionnaire for social capital was constructed based on the Shiu (2008), Sinha (2004), Gorton (2010) and Chattopadhay (2007) questionnaires that have three dimensions of relational (Items 1 to 12), cognitive (Items 13 to 23), and structural (Items 24 to 32) with Cronbach's Alpha of 0.91. The results of path analysis using LISREL software indicated that dimensions of the social capital had a significant effect on student's creative problem solving skill with the indices of 0.93. The model also showed that the factor of structural dimension had the highest direct effect on the creative problemsolving in the factor of creative problem-solving skill.