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

研究启动：工程同理心量表的开发和初步验证

• 批准号: 2306271
• 负责人: Emmabeth Vaughn
• 金额: $ 19.26万
• 依托单位: Austin Peay State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2306271&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Initiation; Development; Initial; Validation

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.

工程师被要求解决的问题是复杂的，不仅是从智力上严格的角度来看，而且从解决方案中必须考虑的各种社会，道德和人类元素中也是如此。为此，移情是工程师了解这些复杂问题并提供满足社会需求的解决方案所需的一项重要技能。但是，同理心是在主导工程文化中定义的，并且在很大程度上不包括在大学工程形成中。为了纠正工程形成中的这一差距，越来越多的研究人员必须研究工程学的同理心，并创建与工程师的移情培训有关的干预措施和工具。为了能够评估和装备更多的移情工程师，必须可以衡量与工程相关和特定的同理心能力。该项目的目的是创建一个工程同情量表（EES），以衡量研究前工程师，实践工程师和工程教育者的同理心。通过使用工程特定的同理心情景，EES将克服当前的工程形成问题，这是一般同理心知识与其在工程学科中的作用之间的脱节。通过了解移情在工程学中的作用，工程师将能够更好地了解其工作的上下文，价值观和驱动力，并与受工作影响的人相关并与之相关。这些特征将使工程师能够更好地为社会服务。该项目还将向PI介绍工程教育领域，并增加研究工程学中同理心的研究人员的数量。目前，很少有研究描述工程实践和教育中移情显示的方案，并且不存在定量量表来评估工程师在工程特定方案中的同理心能力。 EES的发展将由两个关键的研究问题驱动：在工程特定情况下，在概念上，经验和表现出同理心如何？并且是否可以使用特定的特定情况来衡量工程学生，教职员工和从业者的同理心？ EES发展的理论指南来自同理心的三个结构：认知，情感和行为，以及工程学同理心的模型。研究团队将使用此框架与实践工程师和工程教育者进行半结构化的焦点小组，以获取有关工程实践和教育活动的特定背景下的同情思想，情感和展示的详细描述。将分析焦点小组的叙述，以产生工程学中的共同点主题。结果主题将用于在工程特定方案中提出有关同理心的大量问题。这个最初的问题集将通过专家和小组成员之间的新颖审查和编码协议进行选择，以选择用于初始验证的问题集。 EES的初始验证和可靠性将通过对工程学生对EES的反应的确认因素分析来确定。这项建议的完成将导致一种定量评估工具，即公开可用的EES，以便工程教育者和员工工程师的公司可以使用该工具来反思和指示同理心培训有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法规任务，并通过对基金会的知识优点进行评估，并通过评估诚实地进行了评估。