Insights from industry: a quantitative analysis of engineers' perceptions of empathy and care within their practice |
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| Authors: | Justin L Hess Johannes Strobel Rui Pan Carrie A Wachter Morris |
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| Institution: | 1. STEM Education Innovation and Research Institute, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis, IN, USA;2. School of Information Science &3. Learning Technologies, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA;4. Sales, Product, and Remarketing Analyst, Toyota Financial Services, Dallas, TX, USA;5. Department of Counseling and Educational Development, School of Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA |
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| Abstract: | This study focuses on two seldom-investigated skills or dispositions aligned with engineering habits of mind – empathy and care. In order to conduct quantitative research, we designed, explored the underlying structure of, validated, and tested the reliability of the Empathy and Care Questionnaire (ECQ), a new psychometric instrument. In the second part, we used the ECQ to explore the perceptions of empathy and care of alumni/ae of an internationally ranked US institution, along with how perceptions differed by work experience and gender. Results show that participants perceived empathy and care to be important in multiple respects, most notably in relational aspects of engineering practice. Engineers with more engineering experience were more likely to perceive empathy and care as existing in engineering practice and as important to their work. While these phenomena are sometimes depicted as feminine qualities, we found no gender differences among our respondents. |
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| Keywords: | Empathy care engineering practice engineering education survey design psychometrics |
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