z-logo
Premium
Empathy and engineering formation
Author(s) -
Walther Joachim,
Brewer Michael A.,
Sochacka Nicola W.,
Miller Shari E.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.896
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 2168-9830
pISSN - 1069-4730
DOI - 10.1002/jee.20301
Subject(s) - empathy , experiential learning , psychology , meaning (existential) , context (archaeology) , engineering education , phenomenology (philosophy) , function (biology) , value (mathematics) , pedagogy , social psychology , mathematics education , epistemology , engineering , computer science , machine learning , mechanical engineering , paleontology , philosophy , evolutionary biology , psychotherapist , biology
Background The engineering education discourse increasingly recognizes the role of empathy in preparing students for 21st century challenges. This pedagogical and theoretical interest is not supported by an empirical understanding of the role empathy plays in students' professional formation. Purpose This study investigated how undergraduate engineering students made sense of empathy during a series of empathic communication modules as part of a mechanical engineering design course. Methodology Post‐module reflections from 146 students were collected in two iterations of the course. The data were qualitatively analyzed using social phenomenology to focus on participants' meaning making in the context of their overall experiences. A model of empathy as interrelated skills, orientations, and ways of being theoretically framed the data gathering and analysis. Findings Three analytic categories structured the significant variation in students' meaning making. (a) Relationships with Others captured students' understandings of the relationship with and role of others along the three dimensions of Distance, Difference, and Power. (b) The Act of Learning identified varying degrees of resonance or disconnect between students' expectations of engineering learning and the forms of learning encountered in the modules. (c) Empathy as a Conceptual Object described the variation of students' own understandings of the nature and function of empathy in the context of their engineering learning. Conclusions The experiential significance of engaging with empathy makes visible and pedagogically accessible students' value orientations that frame their relationships toward others and their self‐understanding as engineers, thus providing potential new avenues for research and education to engage less tangible facets of engineering formation.

This content is not available in your region!

Continue researching here.

Having issues? You can contact us here