A Model of Empathy in Engineering as a Core Skill, Practice Orientation, and Professional Way of Being

Background: Engineers are increasingly being asked to empathically engage with a broad range of stakeholders. Current efforts to educate empathic engineers, however, are hindered by the lack of a conceptually cohesive understanding of, and language for, applying empathy to engineering. Prior studies have suggested that research informed by long-standing traditions in other fields may provide the rigor, conceptual clarity, and expertise necessary to theoretically ground the education and practice of empathy in technical disciplines. Purpose: This study examined three research questions: What are current understandings of empathy in engineering and engineering education? How do these understandings compare with conceptions of empathy in social work, a professional discipline that defines empathy as a core skill and orientation of its practitioners? What can engineering educators learn from social work to inform the education of empathic engineers?. Scope/Method: This article presents the findings from a sustained, four-year, interdisciplinary dialogue between engineering education and social work education researchers. This effort included an examination of productive tensions and similarities between the two fields, a critical synthesis of the literature on empathy in each discipline, and the development of a context-appropriate model for empathy in engineering. Conclusions: We propose a model of empathy in engineering as a teachable and learnable skill, a practice orientation, and a professional way of being. Expanding conceptions of empathy in social work, this model additionally emphasizes mode switching and a commitment to values pluralism.