The Development and Growth of Empathy Among Engineering Students

Abstract

interests include developing pedagogical strategies to improve STEM students' ethical reasoning skills; exploring the role of empathy within design, innovation and sustainability; synthesizing the influence of societal and individual worldviews on decision-making; assessing STEM students' learning in the spaces of design, ethics, and sustainability; and exploring the impact of pre-engineering curriculum on students' abilities and career trajectories. The Development and Growth of Empathy among Engineering Students AbstractDiscourse on empathy is growing globally, as is its focus within the engineering community. In the context of engineering, scholars have depicted this interpersonal phenomenon as a necessary skill for effectively communicating, a core component of ethical reasoning, and a key technique for designing to meet the needs of users. However, literature regarding its development within engineering is rather limited, and the literature that does exist is disconnected. Even literature outside of engineering tends to focus on childhood development as opposed to adult development. While the developmental literature may tend to focus on earlier ages (likely because this is when an individual most rapidly develops), the endeavor of empathic growth and development need not be abandoned within post-secondary education. Rather, it indicates that we lack an understanding of the ideal means for empathic development later in one's life.Given the growing emphasis on the necessity of empathy to thrive as an engineer, engineering educators need to understand the constellation of existing tools and pedagogical techniques to foster empathy within the engineering curriculum. This synthesis piece highlights a variety of educational contexts and pedagogical techniques, each of which we posit are equally salient and mutually supportive for the development of engineering students' empathic skills, abilities, or dispositions. We draw from literature from a wide variety of fields, including counselling, psychology, moral philosophy, psychotherapy, neuropsychology, and engineering education. In sum, we describe five educational contexts and a myriad of techniques that we posit, when used effectively and spread across engineering curricula, will be effective means towards the development of empathy among engineering students.

The Development of Empathic Perspective‐Taking in an Engineering Ethics Course

“…While the development of empathic perspective‐taking is essential to the professional and ethical practice of engineers, we lack knowledge about the processes that promote the empathic formation of engineering students (Hess & Fila, ). In a developmental sense beyond engineering, there are numerous stage or schematic models that depict development from less to more advanced cognitive, social, or moral stages through a series of transitional points.…”

“…While there has been limited research on empathic development, in 2011, Strobel et al found 22 papers that explicitly focused on empathy in engineering in general. More recently, there has been a much more concerted focus on empathy as a potential concept, disposition, or skill that should be integrated into engineering (Fila, Hess, Purzer, & Dringenberg, 2016;Gray, Yilmaz, Daly, Seifert, & Gonzalez, 2015;Hess, Strobel, Pan, & Wachter Morris, 2017;Hess, Strobel, & Pan, 2016;Rasoal, Danielsson, & Jungert, 2012;Walther et al, 2017). Researchers have begun exploring empathy's functional role (e.g., the affective and cognitive processes of or relations between stakeholders) within multiple engineering educational contexts, including design Gray et al, 2015), service-learning (Lynch et al, 2014;Zoltowski, Oakes, & Cardella, 2012), communication (Leydens & Lucena, 2009;Walther, Miller, & Kellam, 2012), and ethics (Hess, Beever, et al, 2017;Vallero, 2008;Walther et al, 2017).…”

“…One core component of ethical professional behavior is empathy (Gibbs, ; Hoffman, , ; Oxley, ). Calls for embedding empathy, including perspective‐taking, in engineering education are becoming more widespread (Hess & Fila, ; Strobel et al, ; Walther, Miller, & Sochacka, ) as social justice and related moral concerns regarding the diverse values of humanity become central to the practice of engineering (Catalano, ; Riley, ). The development of empathic perspective‐taking should enable engineering students to accurately identify, understand, and (ideally) care about the views and needs of stakeholders impacted by engineering decisions (Hess, Beever, Strobel, & Brightman, ; Vallero, ).…”

Manifestações da empatia na experiência de (game) design interespécie

“…Essas oito distinções sobre empatia propostas por Batson podem ser sintetizadas da seguinte maneira (HESS & FILA, 2016): (i) precisão empática ou teoria da mente; (ii) mimetismo motor; (iii) contágio emocional; (iv) projeção: imaginar-se na posição de outro; (v) tomada de perspectiva: imaginar o outro; (vi) tomada de perspectiva: imaginar-se como se fosse o outro; (vii) aflição empática; e (viii) preocupação empática ou simpatia.…”

Diseases, Devices, and Patients: Exposing BME Students to the Patient Experience

“…A more holistic understanding of the patient may provide for a more effective design process. In the engineering education field in general, a number of investigations have been conducted to explore the relationship and importance of empathy, self-awareness, and social-awareness in engineering students [11][12][13][14]. These studies reveal the importance of empathy for effective innovation and engineering design.…”