The Impact of Flow Experience on Chinese Primary School Students’ Mandarin Language Creative Performance in Mandarin Classrooms

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between flow experience and the Mandarin language creative performance of Chinese primary school students. Although schools increasingly expect students to be creative, classroom instruction in Mandarin remains heavily oriented towards examinations. Flow, a state in which learners become fully absorbed in a task, was proposed as a condition that could support creative writing and storytelling. Five flow antecedents were examined: perceived challenge–skill balance, concentration on tasks, intrinsic enjoyment of learning, loss of self-consciousness, and immediate feedback availability, with flow state tested as a mediator. A cross-sectional questionnaire was administered to 400 students in Year 4 to Year 6 of selected schools in China, and the data were analysed in SPSS using descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson correlation, multiple regression, and the Baron and Kenny mediation procedure supported by the Sobel test. All five antecedents were significant positive predictors of creative performance, jointly explaining 64.0% of its variance, and were also significant predictors of flow state, explaining 54.8% of its variance. Flow state showed the strongest association with creative performance (r = .73) and partially mediated the relationship between each antecedent and creative performance. The findings indicate that classroom conditions which foster flow are associated with stronger creative expression and offer practical guidance for designing Mandarin lessons that enhance engagement and creativity.