Does Social Work Education Teach Empathy?

Purpose: This study examines how much empathy is present when students begin an MSW graduate school, and if they learn or develop more empathy by the end of their first year.  This research was conducted among first year social work graduate students at three universities in the United States and Canada.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional, pre-experimental, pre- & post-test design, applying mixed methodology approaches. The sample consisted of USC School of Social Work, Edinboro University Department of Social Work, and Booth University College School of Social Work and surveyed both online and traditional classroom graduate students (n=245). All participants completed the Cognitive and Affective Empathy Questionnaire, and 3 Vicarious Trauma Survey Questionnaires. 30 participants were randomly selected to participate in a structured phone interview that focused on their perceptions of empathy and trauma, how empathy was learned, and how trauma and empathy may influence their social work practice in internship placements.

Results: Quantitative empathy scores showed significant differences in gender only. There were no variances in specialization, race/ethnicity, military background, and learning modality. Additionally, a paired t-test analysis showed no statistical difference in empathy from pre- to post-test. Interestingly, qualitative interviews suggested that the students believed they became more empathic during their adulthood, including their MSW internship and class time.  Other results also showed gender differences in empathy, history of trauma impacting empathic connectedness, and online students showing lower empathic measures (emotion contagion) than students who are attending a classroom environment.

Conclusion and Implications: The results are an interesting contribution to the empathy literature, as it is often shown in non-social work literature that empathy declined throughout graduate education.  Though the student’s empathy score did not decline, the results showed no change. Implications must examine if social work education is doing enough to impact a student’s empathy. That is, does social work education teach empathy at all?  Longitudinal studies are needed to examine how empathy evolves throughout traditional and virtual MSW programs and one’s social work career.