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WIP: How Empathy Education Changes Student's Perceptions of an “Engineer”

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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

First-Year Programs Division (FYP) - WIPS 3: Identity & Belonging

Tagged Division

First-Year Programs Division (FYP)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--44084

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/44084

Download Count

258

Paper Authors

biography

Libby Flanagan Clemson University

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Libby Flanagan is a current doctoral student in the Engineering and Science Education Department at Clemson University. She received her B.S. in Biosystems Engineering from the Clemson University Honors Program in 2017, along with a minor in Spanish Language Studies. She completed a two-year teaching appointment with Teach for America in 2019, where she taught 6th-grade math and computer science in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She earned her M.S. in Biosystems Engineering at Clemson University in 2021, during which she was an NRT Resilient Infrastructure and Environmental Systems Fellow. Libby is currently a Graduate Teacher of Record in the General Engineering program at Clemson and will start as a Lecturer in the Fall.

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biography

Madison Pollock Clemson University

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Madison Pollock is a third year Biological Sciences Major and Psychology Minor at Clemson University. She has been conducting research with Clemson's Department of Engineering and Science Education (ESED) since August of 2021 under Dr. Karen High. With ESED, she focuses on STEM education research that highlights the details of the curriculum given to students in her position. She also pursues research with Clemson's Department of Psychology. She serves as an undergraduate researcher at the Clemson University Institute for Engaged Aging. Here, she works under the SHARRP Lab's Dr. Lesley Ross and Dr. Christine Phillips on studies involving healthy aging. Outside of research, she works as a certified nursing assistant and is currently training to be a registered behavioral technician in order to perform ABA therapy for children diagnosed with Autism. As a student hoping to pursue a future career in the medical field she enjoys being able to see how these studies directly affect those who participate in them. She believes that seeing participants take something new away from a research study is a reward in and of itself. After graduation from Clemson, she plans to attend medical school and continue to pursue human subject research into her career as a physician.

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biography

Elizabeth Anne Stephan Clemson University

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Dr. Elizabeth Stephan is the Director of Academics for the General Engineering Program at Clemson University. She holds a B.S. and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Akron. Since 2002, she has taught, developed, and now coordinates th

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biography

Karen A. High Clemson University

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Dr. Karen High holds an academic appointment in the Engineering Science and Education Department (ESED) at Clemson University. Prior to this Dr. Karen was at Oklahoma State University where she was a professor for 24 years in Chemical Engineering. She received her B.S. in chemical engineering from University of Michigan in 1985 and her M.S. in 1988 and Ph.D. in 1991 in chemical engineering both from Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Karen’s educational research emphasis includes faculty development and mentoring, graduate student development, critical thinking and communication skills, enhancing mathematical student success in Calculus (including Impact of COVID-19), and promoting women in STEM. Her technical research focuses on sustainable chemical process design, computer aided design, and multicriteria decision making. She also has extensive experience in K-12 STEM education and program evaluation and assessment. She has held a variety of administrative positions: 1) Director of STEM Faculty Development Initiatives-Clemson, 2) Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences-Clemson, 3) Interim Director of Student Services-Oklahoma State University, 4) Coordinator of the Women in Engineering Program-Oklahoma State University, and 5) Director of the Oklahoma State University Measurement and Control Engineering Center-Oklahoma State University.

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Abstract

In this work in progress (WIP) paper, the role of empathy education on students’ perceptions of an engineer is explored through the following research questions: (1) How do first-year students’ perception of the role of an engineer change based on the incorporation of empathy lessons into the classroom?; (2) What are the skills, orientations, and ways of being empathetic that first-year engineering students perceive through empathy education? In an “Introduction to Engineering” course at a large R1 institution in the Southeast of the United States, an honors section received four lessons on empathetic communication in the Fall of 2022. After each lesson and after the lesson series, students completed a written reflection on what they had learned, totaling to five reflections over the semester. Their responses were explored with a thematic qualitative analysis. From that analysis it was determined that students’ ideas expand over the course of the semester regarding the role of empathy in engineering and they begin to think about who they are solving problems for and their role in communicating with those stakeholders. Participants showed a grasp of the skills included in the empathy in engineering model, but not all components of the ways of being or practice orientation. The adaptations to the lessons for this first-year program seem to be providing students with the avenues to consider their broader engineering work. A rollout to all incoming first-year engineering students is planned for the Fall of 2023, so this analysis is ongoing, and all conclusions drawn so far are from Fall of 2022 and are denoted as a WIP.

Flanagan, L., & Pollock, M., & Stephan, E. A., & High, K. A. (2023, June), WIP: How Empathy Education Changes Student's Perceptions of an “Engineer” Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44084

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