Developing Empathetic Dispositions in Engineering Undergraduates Using Humanities Driven STEM: A Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Background: Recently, scholars have called for increasing so-called "soft-skills" held by engineering students, particularly their ability to empathize. In response, educational researchers at Texas Tech University developed a series of "humanities-driven STEM" (HDSTEM) courses, undergraduate courses co-taught by humanities and sciences professors. These courses expose students to an academic topic from both a humanities and STEM-based approach. This study examines the coursework of engineering students enrolled in "History and Engineering in the Second World War."Purpose: We examine the ways that engineering students expressed and developed empathetic positions in their coursework over the trajectory of the HDSTEM course. Design: Students completed four "design, measure, analyze, improve, control" (DMAIC) assignments in this course, wherein they examined a feat of engineering developed during World War 2. During the second and third assignment, they added an "empathize" step (EDMAIC). We use content and discourse analyses to compare their four assignments, especially the ways in which they empathize. We also rated their first and last assignments on an empathy rubric, using Pearson's correlations of interrater reliability to determine empathetic growth.Results: Controlling for the additional empathy step, students regularly had more to say when asked to empathize. Discourse analysis revealed students attempting various rhetorical moves and constructions of an empathetic identity within their coursework, even the final assignment that did not ask them to empathize. Pearson's correlations show, on average, a 1-point of empathetic growth for each student on a 4-point scale (r = .72; p < .01).Conclusions: If we are to teach empathetic and other humanitarian skills to engineering students, we must develop a space where this kind of thinking, and these reflections, are normalized. Doing so does not necessarily require an HDSTEM framework, but requires intentional course design to discuss and foster these attitudes.