Empathy and Caring as Conceptualized Inside and Outside of Engineering: Extensive Literature Review and Faculty Focus Group Analyses

Abstract

Abstract Empathy and Caring as Conceptualized In Engineering: Faculty Focus Group AnalysesThe National Academy of Engineering promotes habits of mind including systems thinking,creativity, optimism, collaboration, communication and attention to ethical considerations.Empathy and care are two attributes that underlie engineering habits of mind. This project stemsfrom a comparative literature review on how empathy/care are conceptualized, integrated intostandards, and taught in engineering as well as disciplines considered empathetic and caring suchas nursing, counseling, etc.The purpose of this study was to investigate how faculty both inside and outside of engineeringconceptualize empathy and care. The research objectives include (1) defining empathy and carewithin engineering, (2) defining empathy and care in disciplines which are traditionallyperceived as caring/empathetic and (3) comparing the role of empathy and care withinengineering to disciplines outside.This study used a qualitative approach. Three engineering and three non-engineering focus groupsessions were conducted with a total of seven engineering and nine non-engineering participants.Interviews were audio recorded and then transcribed. Faculty focus group interview sessionswere semi-structured guided by the following queries: (1) What does empathy mean? (2) Whatdoes caring mean? (3) How much importance is placed on care/empathy in your field, research,profession, or teaching? (4) Do care and empathy have value in your curriculum? How are theyintegrated? (5) How empathetic/caring is engineering? How should it be? An inductive codingprocess was used to analyze participant responses.Engineering participants tended to believe that empathy is related to feeling, is emotive, and doesnot require action. Non-engineering participants suggested that a form of action, however, isnecessary. Engineering participants thought care should require action. Some non-engineers, onthe other hand, tended to consider care more personal. While there was not general consensus onany of these definitions, participants did seem to agree that the terms were related and inconjunction would involve both emotive and action-oriented components.Participants were asked to rank engineering as being empathetic/caring on a scale of 1-10. Therewas wide variability in how caring/empathetic participants thought engineering to be. This isshown in the figure on the following page, which includes an average score and standarddeviation of participant responses. Our next step is to further explore the focus group responsesto better understand the guiding questions. Ideally, by analyzing the responses we will also betterunderstand questions such as, "How might teaching attributes such as care and empathy inengineering education lead to more socially responsible and ethical engineers?" and "How wouldan engineering educator teach empathy/care within an engineering classroom? Engineering vs. Non-Engineering Rankings How empathetic/caring is engineering on a scale of 1-10?10 Engineering 8 7 Participants Average=5.5 6 STDEV=2.4 4 Non-Engineering 9 Participants Average=2.9 2 STDEV=3.1 0

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