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Story-Driven Learning in Biomedical Engineering: Quantifying Empathy in the Context of Prompts and Perceptions

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Biomedical Engineering Division (BED) Technical Session 1: Sense of Self in Biomedical Engineering Students

Tagged Division

Biomedical Engineering Division (BED)

Page Count

21

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44258

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/44258

Download Count

158

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Paper Authors

biography

Stephanie Jill Lunn Florida International University

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Stephanie Lunn is an Assistant Professor in the School of Universal Computing, Construction, and Engineering Education (SUCCEED) and the STEM Transformation Institute at Florida International University (FIU). She also has a secondary appointment in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences (KFSCIS). Previously, Dr. Lunn served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with a focus on engineering education. She earned her doctoral degree in computer science from the KFSCIS at FIU, in addition to B.S. and M.S. degrees. She also holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in neuroscience from the University of Miami. Her research interests span the fields of computing and engineering education, human-computer interaction, data science, and machine learning.

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Cristi L. Bell-Huff Georgia Institute of Technology

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Cristi L. Bell-Huff, PhD is a Lecturer and Director of Faculty and Student Training in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University where she is involved in teaching and engineering education innovation and research. In addition to her PhD in Chemical Engineering, she also has an MA in Educational Studies. She has industrial experience in pharmaceutical product and process development as well as teaching experience at the secondary and post-secondary levels.

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Joseph M. LeDoux Georgia Institute of Technology

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Joe Le Doux is the Executive Director for Learning and Training in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. Dr. Le Doux's research interests include narrative and inclusive pedagogies and practices.

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Abstract

Storytelling can be valuable for developing empathy and enhancing communication, allowing individuals to make connections with themselves and others. In this work, we sought to understand the potential of story-driven learning, the process of developing stories to connect defining moments of the past and consider future goals, within the context of engineering. We describe a required, non-traditional undergraduate course that employs this pedagogical approach for biomedical engineering students to encourage them to integrate, reframe, and make meaning of their diverse experiences. We then detail our study, where we sought to explore: 1) how unique story prompts may elicit different aspects of empathy, in terms of sharing, thinking about, and caring about others; and 2) how students' self-perceptions of empathy correspond to external evaluations of empathy from stories shared. We quantitatively assessed aspects of empathy in (n = 20) students' stories submitted around four specific prompts using the External Evaluation of Empathy Rubric (EEER). The empathy observed in these stories was then compared to the students' self-reported empathy, as measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Our findings illustrate that encouraging students to think about their future and their goals often yields the highest scores for emotional, cognitive, and action-oriented components of empathy. Prompting students to describe confronting or responding to a failure led to more self-focused stories, where students were less likely to describe any kind of societal-level change. The data also provided evidence for relationships between internal and externally evaluated empathy, with a significant and large positive relationship for the cognitive aspect. We hope that this research will encourage other educators to see the value of story-driven learning and to employ this innovative approach to future lessons and activities. In addition, we suggest that the selection of story prompts can be important and may impact the empathy components elicited.

Lunn, S. J., & Bell-Huff, C. L., & LeDoux, J. M. (2023, June), Story-Driven Learning in Biomedical Engineering: Quantifying Empathy in the Context of Prompts and Perceptions Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44258

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2023 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015