Understanding Current Empathy-Based Pedagogy in Engineering Education

Jenny HowcroftKate Mercer

Grant Recipients

Jenny Howcroft, Systems Design Engineering

Kate Mercer, Library & Systems Design Engineering

Description

Empathy is the ability to understand other鈥檚 perspectives, and is a necessary soft skill for 21stcentury engineers. Empathy skills benefit students by supporting deeper understanding of users, increased creativity, and ethical skill development. However, empathy-based pedagogy is an underdeveloped area of engineering education research. We aim to contribute to this research area by developing an understanding of (1) instructors鈥 empathy knowledge, perceptions, and values, and (2) empathy-based pedagogy in engineering and architecture courses. This will be accomplished through a survey within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of 蓝莓视频. This survey can provide an overview of empathy perceptions and pedagogy across the faculty and identify differences between departments, genders, course types (e.g., design vs technical), etc. in perceptions of empathy and incorporation of empathy-based pedagogy. 听This research is part of a larger goal to build a pedagogical framework for engineering-empathy-based education.

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