Role and Functions of Empathy for Teachers in Elementary Classrooms: Building Positive Learning Environments

• In Event: Beliefs, Identity, Teacher Motivation, and Emotions: Perspectives for Teacher-Student Relationships

Abstract

Objectives & Framework: How do Australian elementary teachers, identified by principals as effective empathisers, understand and enact empathy to provide students with social and emotional support? This study used a multidimensional operational definition to guide observations of teacher interactions with students to examine manifestations of teacher empathy practice. The study explicated processes whereby teachers know students’ internal states and respond with sensitive care. Teacher empathy—“an ability to access the life of the mind of others in their bodily and behavioural expressions” (Zahavi & Overgaard, 2012, p.10)—consisted of affective empathy (sharing or mirroring another’s emotional state) and cognitive empathy (perceiving and decoding other’s emotional states to accurately infer what they are thinking/feeling).

Methods & Data: Six teachers (grades 2–6; 2–17 years’ experience) and their 65 students from two schools in Melbourne participated. Teachers rated their relational goals (Butler, 2012), and teachers and students completed the Teacher Style Survey (Watt & Richardson, 2007) tapping relatedness, expectations, structure, and negativity. Teachers’ filmed their practice at two timepoints (vignettes) and nominated positive “empathy interaction moments” for analysis. They kept a diary to record thoughts, feelings, and actions, and perspectives were explored at interview. Observers assessed “live” lessons and vignettes for emotional support (positive climate, teacher sensitivity, regard for student perspectives) using the CLASS protocol (Pianta, Hamre, & Mintz, 2012). An interpretative phenomenological approach (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) was used to analyse transcripts. Diaries and vignettes were coded for cognitive and affective empathy elements.

Results: The case studies showed commonalities in the lived experience of empathic engagement. Teachers perceived empathy as a combination of understanding, experience, and imagination that helped them to meet student needs. Phenomenological themes included knowing students, being highly motivated to connect, taking a personal interest, displaying high levels of emotional and social support, and adjusting their teaching to meet the needs of students. Evaluation showed high scores for emotional support of classroom climate (Table 1) – there were high correlations (rho >.87) between CLASS emotional support factors in lesson observations and vignettes. Empathic teachers perceived teaching style dimensions similarly to students (Figure 1). One-sample t-tests determined where differences in perceptions were significant. Teachers generally rated themselves more positively than their students with regard to relatedness, structure, and expectations, and lower for negativity.

Significance: Empathic interactions were found to enhance the quality of teaching by creating positive learning environments, unconditional positive regard (caring), and support. The more accurately teachers teased out students’ mental states, the more able they were to respond sensitively to behaviour with an emotion based on care. Enacting appropriate responses requires awareness of students’ mental states in relationships, responding with strategies that enhance behaviour, feelings, thoughts and agency in engagement, resulting in teachers who are motivated to actively monitor and respond to behavioural signals – of relevance to all practitioners. A practical development grounded in this data is development of an empathy assessment instrument, which may be a platform to enhance teachers’ empathic engagement to improve future relational practice.

Author

• Paul Anthony Swan, Monash University