Creative Drama and Forum Theatre in initial teacher education: Fostering students’ empathy and awareness of professional conflicts

‘Teacher, Am I Empathetic?’ Instilling Empathy in Adolescents

“…They only gave limited verbal responses that barely reflected their cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy involves cognitive processing, enabling students to take other people's perspectives, interpret and verbally state their affective responses (Briones et al, 2022). It would be unfair to judge that these students lacked cognitive and affective empathy, as there could be reasons for their inability to display verbal and/or appropriate facial expressions.…”

“…Although Rita and Bing displayed a commercial where the father was ill-treated by their children, only a few questions were asked on how the students felt, with emphasis on self-oriented perspective-taking but devoid of other-oriented perspective-taking such as, 'How would the father feel in this situation, even though the former could lead to empathic concern; the emphasis on both orientations can further enhance the awareness of empathic feelings. Therefore, teachers should use pertinent questions that encourage students to be aware of the perspectives of others (Briones et al, 2022). As mirror neurons in children's brains could be altered; empathy can be developed if children are repeatedly exposed to role-plays or other opportunities in this case.…”

“…Bing employed role-taking to make students understand the perspective of others. Role-taking allows students to understand the perspectives of others (Briones et al, 2022). In the first lesson observed, students acted out the residents' and vandals' roles in a multiracial residential compound; however, in the course of acting, the students showed difficulty in displaying appropriate facial expressions, and their acting was rather stiff, as reflected in their responses.…”

“…Many studies related to empathy training have been explored on children, nurses, and clinicians but few on teachers and the field of education (Bouton, 2016;Whitford & Emerson, 2019). However, empathy training in schools is more prevalent in the West (Briones et al, 2022;Carlo et al, 2015) than in the East, especially in Southeast Asian countries. In Malaysia, the development of empathy in students is widely considered the responsibility of Moral Education (ME) educators.…”

“…In carrying out this responsibility, ME educators, if trained appropriately, could play a critical role in instilling empathy (moral affective) according to topics from the themes mentioned, as they are considered ethical models who strive to contribute to the development of care and empathy in students (Noddings, 2013). Studies from the West have demonstrated methods for imparting empathy through various pedagogical approaches (Briones et al, 2022;Engelen et al, 2018) as well as promoting empathy in adolescents (Dallacqua et al, 2022).…”