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ABSTRACT
This study extends previous work on two related phenomena, empathy and care, within engineering. In two phases, we collected and thematically analyzed semi-structured interviews with 25 practicing engineers in order to understand how they conceptualized empathy and care (Phase 1) and in what ways they perceived empathy and care to exist within or be important to engineering practice (Phase 2). Qualitative outcomes of this study include 3 categories with 11 themes that highlight how these phenomena are described by engineers (Phase 1) and 4 categories with 13 themes which depict how engineers perceive these phenomena within their work (Phase 2). Using these results, we consider how empathy and care may be conceptualized within an engineering context, the outcomes of an empathetic/caring engineering process, and contextual and philosophical considerations for integrating empathy/care into engineering practice and education.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of the participants who volunteered their time to participate in this study. We would also like to thank Ming-Chien Hsu and Jessica E Jones for their assistance in conducting interviews utilized in this study. This investigation would not have been possible without you. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Teslow et al., “Assessing Pre-college Engineering Education Curricula,” 2015.
2 Roeser, “Emotional Engineers,” 2012; Riley and Lambrinidou, “Canons Against Cannons?” 2015; Doorn, “Responsibility Ascriptions in Technology Development,” 2012.
3 Note that later in the manuscript, we unpack this definition. For one comprehensive outlook on this phenomenon, see Davis, Empathy, 1996. To see more nuances in uses of this term, see Batson, “These Things Called Empathy,” 2009. Batson indicates that there are eight similar but distinct phenomena that are commonly described as “empathy” by scholars throughout social psychology and social neuroscience literature.
4 As with empathy, we unpack this definition later. This is the brief definition offered by Mayeroff, On Caring, 1971.
5 Kunyk and Olson, “Clarification of Conceptualizations of Empathy,” 2001.
6 ABET, Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, 2012. Note that at the time of this writing, new program criteria were under review. See ABET, Rationale for Revising Criteria 3 and 5, n.d. Note that while we argue that these phenomena are relevant in certain contexts, we attempted to approach the data collection and analysis throughout this manuscript with a blank slate mentality.
7 National Academy of Engineering, Changing the Conversation, 2008; National Academy of Engineering, The Engineer of 2020, 2004.
8 Hess, “A Multi-phase Exploration of Conceptualizations, Perceived Importance, and the Development of Empathy Within Engineering,” 2015; Hess et al., “Practicing Engineers' Perceptions of Empathy and Care,” 2014; Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013; Strobel et al., “Engineering as a Caring and Empathetic Discipline,” 2011.
9 Grasso and Burkins, Holistic Engineering Education, 2010.
10 Walther et al., “A Model of Empathy in Engineering as a Core Skill, Practice Orientation, and Professional Way of Being,” in press; Rasoal et al., “Empathy among Students in Engineering Programmes,” 2012.
11 Johnson et al., “An Experimental Investigation of the Effectiveness of Empathic Experience Design for Innovative Concept Development,” 2014.
12 Hynes and Swenson, “The Humanistic Side of Engineering,” 2013; Hess and Fila, “The Manifestation of Empathy Within Design,” 2016; Fila et al., “The People Part of Engineering,” 2014.
13 Fila et al., “Engineering Students’ Utilization of Empathy During a Non-immersive Conceptual Design Task,” 2016.
14 Zoltowski et al., “Students’ Ways of Experiencing Human-centered Design,” 2012.
15 Leydens and Lucena, “Social Justice,” 2014.
16 Vallero, “Macroethics and Engineering Leadership,” 2008; Pantazidou and Nair, “Ethic of Care,” 1999; van Wynsberghe, “Designing Robots for Care,” 2013.
17 Walther et al., “Exploring the Role of Empathy in Engineering Communication Through a Trans-disciplinary Dialogue,” 2012.
18 Hess and Strobel, “Sustainability and the Engineering Worldview,” 2013.
19 Riley, Engineering and Social Justice, 2008; Leydens and Lucena, “Social Justice,” 2014.
20 Schneider et al., “Engineering to Help,” 2009; Leydens and Lucena, “Listening as a Missing Dimension in Engineering Education,” 2009; Hynes and Swenson, “The Humanistic Side of Engineering,” 2013.
21 Zoltowski et al., “Students’ Ways of Experiencing Human-centered Design,” 2012; Fila and Hess, “Exploring the Role of Empathy in a Service-learning Design Project,” 2015; Gray et al., “Idea Generation Through Empathy,” 2015.
22 de Figueiredo, “Toward an Epistemology of Engineering,” 2008.
23 Postma et al., “Challenges of Doing Empathic Design,” 2012; Leonard and Rayport, “Spark Innovation Through Empathic Design,” 1997.
24 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013; Strobel et al., “Engineering as a Caring and Empathetic Discipline,” 2011; Hess et al., “Empathy and Caring as Conceptualized Inside and Outside of Engineering,” 2012.
25 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013.
26 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013.
27 Leydens and Lucena, “The Problem of Knowledge in Incorporating Humanitarian Ethics in Engineering Education,” 2006.
28 Asgill, “Introducing Safety and Health Issues into Engineering Technology Curriculum,” 2007.
29 Zoltowski et al., “Students’ Ways of Experiencing Human-centered Design,” 2012.
30 Moriarty and Julliard, “On Subjectivity in Focal Engineering,” 2001.
31 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013.
32 Kunyk and Olson, “Clarification of Conceptualizations of Empathy,” 2001.
33 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013, p. 155.
34 Strobel et al., “Engineering as a Caring and Empathetic Discipline,” 2011.
35 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013.
36 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013.
37 Walther et al., “Quality in Interpretive Engineering Education Research,” 2013.
38 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013.
39 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013; Strobel et al., “Engineering as a Caring and Empathetic Discipline,” 2011; Hess et al., “Empathy and Caring as Conceptualized Inside and Outside of Engineering,” 2012.
40 Training included having the interviewers-in training review the interview protocol, sit-in on an interview conducted by the first interviewer, and a post-interview question and answer session between the first interviewer and each trainee. Each interview was performed over the phone using Skype, and CallGraph recording software was used to record the interviews.
41 An adequate number for data saturation; see Guest et al., “How Many Interviews Are Enough?” 2006; Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, 2013.
42 Walther et al., “Quality in Interpretive Engineering Education Research,” 2013.
43 Seventeen interviews were from Coder 1, who was a male PhD student, and 7 were from Coder 2 who was a female PhD student. One interview was from a third interviewer, who was a female Masters student.
44 Braun and Clarke, “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology,” 2006, p. 82.
45 Walsham, “The Emergence of Interpretivism in IS Research,” 1995; Borrego et al., “Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Research Methods in Engineering Education,” 2009.
46 Weber, “The Rhetoric of Positivism Versus Interpretivism,” 2004.
47 van Manen, Researching Lived Experience, 1990.
48 Hess et al., “Practicing Engineers' Perceptions of Empathy and Care,” 2014.
49 Hinkin suggested that this form of inductive item generation is “appropriate when the conceptual basis for a construct may not result in easily identifiable dimensions for which items can then be generated”. See Hinkin, “A Brief Tutorial on the Development of Measures for Use in Survey Questionnaires,” 1998.
50 Walther et al., “Quality in Interpretive Engineering Education Research,” 2013.
51 Hallgren, “Computing Inter-rater Reliability for Observational Data,” 2012.
52 Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, 2007.
53 After Coder 1 coded the first five interviews (adding a total of 314 items), Coder 2 went through the coding document and agreed or disagreed with existing codes, added codes thought to be missed, and created new codes representing new ideas. Coder 2 disagreed with 13 of the existing codes, representing an agreement rate of 95.9%. Coder 2 created five new codes and added 28 codes that she thought Coder 1 missed, increasing the number of items coded by nearly 9%. While we recognize that “percentages of agreement” is considered an inadequate measure of inter-rater reliability by many, we felt that the constant dialogue between the authors established a high level of consensus between not only the coders, but also the research team as a whole. Further, our intent was never to report “quantized” qualitative data, but rather to use the codes to guide our generation of themes. For more on inter-rater reliability, see Hallgren, “Computing Inter-rater Reliability for Observational Data,” 2012.
54 Walther et al., “Quality in Interpretive Engineering Education Research,” 2013.
55 Geertz, “Thick Description,” 1973.
56 Schneider et al., “Engineering to Help,” 2009.
57 Davis, Empathy, 1996.
58 Batson, “These Things Called Empathy,” 2009.
59 Kunyk and Olson, “Clarification of Conceptualizations of Empathy,” 2001.
60 Batson, “These Things Called Empathy,” 2009.
61 ASCE Steering Committee, The Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025, 2006; Pantazidou and Nair, “Ethic of Care,” 1999.
62 Batson, “These Things Called Empathy,” 2009; Kunyk and Olson, “Clarification of Conceptualizations of Empathy,” 2001.
63 Fila et al., “The People Part of Engineering,” 2014.
64 Batson et al., “Empathy and Altruism,” 2011; Stich et al., “Altruism,” 2012; Hoffman, Empathy and Moral Development, 2000.
65 Davis, Empathy, 1996.
66 Sanders, “Exploring Co-creation on a Large Scale,” 2009.
67 Kwok-leung Ho et al., “Empathy @ Design Research,” 2011.
68 Allport, The Nature of Prejudice, 1954 and Mower, “Reflections on … a “Group” Culture,” 2015.
69 Kwok-Leung Ho et al., “Empathy @ Design Research,” 2011.
70 Hynes and Swenson, “The Humanistic Side of Engineering,” 2013.
71 Sanders, “Exploring Co-creation on a Large Scale,” 2009.
72 Strobel et al., “Empathy and Care Within Engineering,” 2013.
73 National Academy of Engineering, The Engineer of 2020, 2004.
74 National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council, Engineering in K-12 Education, 2009.
75 This is not to suggest that no one has integrated such considerations. For example, see Vallero, “Macroethics and Engineering Leadership,” 2008; Vallero and Vesilind, “Preventing Disputes with Empathy,” 2006.
76 “Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public”. See National Society of Professional Engineers, NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers, 2013.
77 Oxley, The Moral Dimensions of Empathy, 2011.
78 Gilligan, In a Different Voice, 1982.
79 Hoffman, Empathy and Moral Development, 2000.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Justin L. Hess
Justin L. Hess is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the STEM Education Innovation and Research Institute at IUPUI. His research focuses on engineers' core values and worldviews.
Johannes Strobel
Johannes Strobel is a Professor in the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri. His research focuses on integrated STEM Education, particularly “E”ngineering and “T”echnology.
Rui (Celia) Pan
Rui (Celia) Pan is a Sales, Product, and Remarketing Analyst at Toyota Financial Services. Her practice involves building predictive modules for inventory and pricing calculations.