382P
Assessing Empathy Across College Majors: A Longitudinal Study
This longitudinal study of undergraduate students at a public university sought to find commonalities and differences among students who choose social work as a major as compared to students who took an introductory social work course but did not major in social work and to ascertain changes in students’ emotional empathy over time in students’ as measured by the Toronto Empathy Quotient (Spreng et al.2009). The study also compared emotional empathy of students majoring in social work with students majoring in psychology, business, engineering, and chemistry. It was hypothesized that social work students’ and psychology students’ TEQ scores would be higher at each data collection point than those students in the chemistry and engineering departments. It was also hypothesized that the TEQ scores of social work students would increase at each data collection point. It was hypothesized that students with a social work or a psychology major would score higher on the TEQ than students majoring in business, chemistry, and engineering.
Methods:
The study utilized an online survey with longitudinal research design. There were three data collection points over the course of the required social work curriculum for all social work study participants. All psychology, engineering, business, and chemistry students completed the survey once. Data collection began fall semester of 2009 and concluded spring semester of 2012. All social work students completed the survey at three data collection points. All other students completed the survey once.
Results:
Statistical analyses of data show statistically significant differences between those students in social work and psychology majors as compared to students with a business, engineering, or chemistry major. Statistically significant differences (p<.05) were not found between social work students and psychology students. Statistically significant differences (p<.05) were found in social work students between the first data collection time during the introductory social work course and the last data collection time during students’ field placement semester. It was also found that students in the introductory social work course who scored lower on the TEQ were less likely to complete the social work degree.
Conclusions and Implications:
This study implies that those college students with higher levels of emotional empathy as measured by the TEQ, are attracted to the helping professions of social work and psychology. While students with lower emotional empathy scores are either not attracted to these degrees or are less likely to complete the social work degree. These findings are consistent with student college development theory and prior studies that indicate college students are more likely to choose majors which maximize their innate strengths. Implications for high school and college advisement are that accurate assessment of students’ personal strengths and weaknesses can be useful in guiding students to the most appropriate college major for their skills and abilities.