Research Initiation: Development and Initial Validation of an Engineering Empathy Scale

工程师被要求解决的问题是复杂的，不仅从智力上的严谨角度来看，而且从解决方案中必须考虑的无数社会、伦理和人的因素来看。为此，同理心是工程师理解这些复杂问题并提供满足社会需求的解决方案所需的基本技能。然而，在占主导地位的工程文化中，移情被贬低，在大学工程形成中很大程度上没有包括在内。为了纠正工程学形成中的这一差距，更多的研究人员必须研究工程学中的共情，并为工程师创造与共情培训相关的干预和工具。为了能够评估和装备一个更有同理心的工程师，与工程相关的和特定的同理心能力必须是可衡量的。本项目的目的是创建一个工程员工成就量表(EES)来测量职业生涯前工程师、执业工程师和工程教育工作者的同理心。通过使用工程学特定的同理心情景，EES将克服当前工程学形成中的一个问题，即对同理心的一般知识与其在工程学学科中的作用之间的脱节。通过了解同理心在工程学中的作用，工程师将能够更好地理解他们工作的背景、价值观和驱动力，并与那些受到他们工作影响的人联系和沟通。这些特点将使工程师能够更好地为社会整体服务。该项目还将把PI引入工程教育领域，并增加研究工程中移情的研究人员的数量。目前，很少有研究描述工程实践和教育中移情展示的情景，也没有量化的量表来评估工程师在工程特定情景中的移情能力。EES的发展将受到两个关键研究问题的推动：同理心是如何在概念上被感知、体验和在工程特定情况下表现出来的？工程学的具体情况可以用来衡量工程学学生、教师和从业者的同理心吗？EES发展的理论指导来自三个共情结构：认知、情感和行为，以及工程学中的共情模型。利用这一框架，研究团队将与实践工程师和工程教育工作者进行半结构化焦点小组，以获得对工程实践和教育活动的特定背景下的同理心、情感和展示的详细描述。将对焦点小组的叙述进行分析，以产生工程学中移情的主要主题。由此产生的主题将被用来开发一大套关于工程特定场景中的同理心的问题。此初始问题集将经过专家和新手评审，并将使用专家小组成员之间的编码协议来选择问题集进行初步验证。EES的初步效度和可靠性将通过对工科学生对EES的反应进行验证性因素分析来确定。这项建议的完成将导致一种量化评估工具EES公开可用，以便工程教育工作者和员工工程师的公司可以使用该工具来反映和指示移情培训的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The problems engineers are called to solve are complex, not just from an intellectually rigorous perspective, but also from the myriad of societal, ethical, and human elements that must be considered in the solution. To this end, empathy is an essential skill needed by engineers to understand these complex problems and provide solutions that meet the needs of society. Empathy, however, is devalued within dominant engineering culture and largely not included in collegiate engineering formation. To correct this gap in engineering formation, more researchers must study empathy in engineering and create interventions and tools related to empathy training for engineers. To be able to assess and equip a more empathetic engineer, empathetic capabilities relevant and specific to engineering must be measurable. The aim of this project is to create an Engineering Empath Scale (EES) to measure empathy in pre-career engineers, practicing engineers, and engineering educators. Through the use of engineering specific empathetic scenarios, the EES will overcome a current issue in engineering formation, a disconnect between knowledge of empathy generally and its role within the discipline of engineering. Through knowledge of the role of empathy within engineering, engineers will be better able to understand the context, values, and driving forces of their work and relate to and communicate with those impacted by their work. These traits will allow engineers to better holistically serve society. This project will also introduce the PI to the field of engineering education and increase the number of researchers studying empathy in engineering. Currently, few studies describe scenarios of empathetic displays within engineering practice and education and no quantitative scale exists to assess an engineer’s empathetic abilities in engineering specific scenarios. The development of the EES will be driven by two key research questions: How is empathy conceptually perceived, experienced, and shown in engineering specific situations? and Can engineering specific situations be used to measure empathy in engineering students, faculty, and practitioners? Theoretical guidance for development of the EES comes from the three constructs of empathy: cognitive, affective, and behavioral, and a model for empathy in engineering. Using this framework, the research team will conduct semi-structured focus groups with practicing engineers and engineering educators to obtain detailed descriptions of empathetic thoughts, emotions, and displays within the specific context of engineering practice and education activities. Focus group narratives will be analyzed to produce overarching themes of empathy in engineering. The themes that result will be used to develop a large set of questions regarding empathy in engineering specific scenarios. This initial question set will go through expert and novice review and coding agreement between panel members will be used to select the question set for initial validation. Initial validation and reliability of the EES will be determined through confirmatory factor analysis of engineering students’ responses to the EES. Accomplishment of this proposal will result in a quantitative assessment tool, the EES, to be made publicly available so that engineering educators, and companies that employee engineers, can use the tool for reflection and indication of empathy training effectiveness.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.