Exploring How Empathy Manifests with/for Teammates in a Junior-Level Biomedical Engineering Course

Justin L. Hess; Aristides Carrillo-Fernandez; Nicholas D. Fila; Corey T. Schimpf

Download Paper | Permalink

Conference: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual Conference
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
Start Date: July 26, 2021
End Date: July 19, 2022
Conference Session: Teamwork: Priming, Empathy, and Metacognition
Tagged Division: Liberal Education/Engineering & Society
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 22
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--37143
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/37143
Download Count: 553

Paper Authors

biography

Justin L. Hess Purdue University at West Lafayette orcid.org/0000-0002-1210-9535

visit author page

Dr. Justin L Hess is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. His mission is to inspire change in engineering culture to become more socially responsive, environmentally friendly, and inclusive, thereby providing opportunities for all current and prospective engineers to reach their maximum potential and to help realize a sustainable world. Dr. Hess’s primary research interests including exploring the functional role of empathy in various domains, including engineering ethics, design, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. He received his PhD from Purdue University's School of Engineering Education, as well as a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science from Purdue University's School of Civil Engineering. He is the 2021 division chair-elect for the ASEE Liberal Education/Engineering and Society division and is the Editorial Board Chair for the Online Ethics Center.

visit author page

biography

Aristides Carrillo-Fernandez Purdue University at West Lafayette

visit author page

Aristides Carrillo-Fernandez is a Ph.D. student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He previously worked as an export business development manager at a Spanish radio communications company in Madrid, Spain. For over six years, he developed new distribution dealer networks in Western Europe and African countries. He earned his M.S. in Electronics and Systems of Telecommunication at ESIGELEC (École Supérieur D'Ingénieurs en Génie Électrique) at Rouen, France, and his B.S. in Systems of Telecommunication at the Polytechnic University of Madrid at Madrid, Spain.
Aristides' research interests include the role of empathy in engineering teamwork, engineering thinking, design and cognition, engineering practice, and professional development in global and intercultural environments.

visit author page

biography

Nicholas D. Fila Iowa State University of Science and Technology

visit author page

Nicholas D. Fila is a research assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University. His current research explores engineering students' experiences with innovation, empathy across engineering education and engineering design settings, design thinking in the course design process, and novel uses of qualitative research methods in engineering education.

visit author page

biography

Corey T. Schimpf University at Buffalo, The State University of New York orcid.org/0000-0003-2706-3282

visit author page

Corey Schimpf is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo with interest in engineering design, advancing research methods, and technology innovations to support learning in complex domains. One major strand of his work focuses on analyzing how expertise develops in engineering design across the continuum from novice pre-college students to practicing engineers. Another focuses on advancing how engineering design research by integrating new theoretical or analytical frameworks (e.g., from data science or complexity science). Another strand focuses on conducting design-based research to develop scaffolding tools for supporting the learning of complex skills like design and advanced research methods like agent-based modeling. He is the incoming Program Chair for the Design in Engineering Education Division within ASEE.

visit author page

Download Paper | Permalink

Abstract

Background: Teamwork projects are a common feature of undergraduate and graduate engineering programs and improved collaboration skills is an expectation of ABET accredited programs. Thus, it is important to understand factors that contribute to more effective collaboration skills in team interactions. One defining feature of effective teams is collective empathy, but the extent to which students empathize with team members has not yet been studied extensively in engineering education. Purpose: This study focuses on team experiences associate with a junior-level biomedical engineering design course wherein students engaged in a group of three to four members. We address the research question, “How did empathy manifest with and for teammates in a junior-level biomedical engineering design course.” Design/Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 students. The interview primarily involved students’ empathy for users, but their teaming experiences were a sub-component of the protocol. In this study, we extracted passages in which students mentioned, talked about, or described their experiences as a team member, including ways in which they or their team members empathized. Using these passages, we performed a thematic analysis to identify how unique empathy types manifested therein. Results: We found that it was often a challenge to extract empathy types from the interview alone. Rather, students tended to talk about elements of the team that fostered or promoted collective empathy. Thus, these antecedents served as the primary themes or outcomes of this analysis. Preliminary themes include relational codes such as cognitive-based trust (or a lack of it); correlative professional skills, such as effective communication; and potential biases that promoted (or inhibited) empathy, such as familiarity bias. Conclusions: We hope that this working in progress study will position us and other researchers in the community to identify strategies to better promote students’ ability and tendency to empathize with and for members. Moreover, we hope that this work will provide a foundation for future research focused on how empathy can lead to more effective engineering design teams.

Citation
Format

Hess, J. L., & Carrillo-Fernandez, A., & Fila, N. D., & Schimpf, C. T. (2021, July), Exploring How Empathy Manifests with/for Teammates in a Junior-Level Biomedical Engineering Course Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37143

TY - CPAPER
AB -
Background: Teamwork projects are a common feature of undergraduate and graduate engineering programs and improved collaboration skills is an expectation of ABET accredited programs. Thus, it is important to understand factors that contribute to more effective collaboration skills in team interactions. One defining feature of effective teams is collective empathy, but the extent to which students empathize with team members has not yet been studied extensively in engineering education.
Purpose: This study focuses on team experiences associate with a junior-level biomedical engineering design course wherein students engaged in a group of three to four members. We address the research question, “How did empathy manifest with and for teammates in a junior-level biomedical engineering design course.”
Design/Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 students. The interview primarily involved students’ empathy for users, but their teaming experiences were a sub-component of the protocol. In this study, we extracted passages in which students mentioned, talked about, or described their experiences as a team member, including ways in which they or their team members empathized. Using these passages, we performed a thematic analysis to identify how unique empathy types manifested therein.
Results: We found that it was often a challenge to extract empathy types from the interview alone. Rather, students tended to talk about elements of the team that fostered or promoted collective empathy. Thus, these antecedents served as the primary themes or outcomes of this analysis. Preliminary themes include relational codes such as cognitive-based trust (or a lack of it); correlative professional skills, such as effective communication; and potential biases that promoted (or inhibited) empathy, such as familiarity bias.
Conclusions: We hope that this working in progress study will position us and other researchers in the community to identify strategies to better promote students’ ability and tendency to empathize with and for members. Moreover, we hope that this work will provide a foundation for future research focused on how empathy can lead to more effective engineering design teams.

AU - Justin L. Hess
AU - Aristides Carrillo-Fernandez
AU - Nicholas D. Fila
AU - Corey T. Schimpf
CY - Virtual Conference
DA - 2021/07/26
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Exploring How Empathy Manifests with/for Teammates in a Junior-Level Biomedical Engineering Course
UR - https://peer.asee.org/37143
DO - 10.18260/1-2--37143
ER -