The Impact of Narratives and Empathy on Girls' Engagement in Engineering Design Activities

• In Event: Using Narratives to Create Engaging and Inclusive Engineering Experiences for Children and Families

Abstract

Purpose. In this design-based research project, researchers and activity developers in a science center examined how narrative elements (including characters, settings, and problem frames) could be used to evoke empathy and support girls’ engagement in the engineering design process. The project aimed to develop evidence-based strategies for creating inclusive engineering activities that foster user-centered thinking.

Theoretical background. Researchers in engineering education have described perspective-taking and empathy as integral parts of the design process, allowing engineers to more deeply understand their clients’ needs and perspectives (Walther, 2017; Hess & Fila, 2016). Although girls and women remain drastically underrepresented in engineering, reframing engineering education to focus on helping others also has the potential to invite more girls into the field by providing personally and socially meaningful contexts for using engineering practices (Capobianco & Yu, 2014; Ceci & Williams, 2010). Studies in museum settings suggest that narratives are a promising strategy for contextualizing engineering problems and prompting learners to consider the users of their designs (Bennett & Monahan, 2013). However, more research is needed to understand what kinds of narrative elements are effective in eliciting empathic responses, how the experience of empathy supports critical engineering practices such as problem scoping and iteration, and what impact these approaches have on girls’ engagement.

Methods and data sources. Six pairs of engineering design activities were developed and tested in a hands-on science center. Each activity pair included one version with narrative elements, and one without (e.g., Narrative condition: Design an air-powered vehicle to help someone travel over different landscapes; vs. Non-Narrative condition: Design an air-powered vehicle that can move over different textured surfaces). Data included structured observations and interviews with 190 girls (ages 7-14) who participated in one of the two versions of each activity. Observations and interviews were systematically coded to compare expressions of empathy (including affective responses, cognitive perspective-taking, and prosocial actions) and engagement in engineering practices (including problem-scoping, ideation, testing, and iteration) across the two conditions.

Results and Significance. Multiple facets of empathy were observed in the narrative-based activities, particularly those that included depictions of characters either alone or in combination with depictions of settings. In addition, girls in the narrative condition engaged in more engineering practices overall (F(1, 180)=6.16, p=.01), and more instances of problem scoping and iteration in particular (chi-sq(1, N=190)=6.52, p=.01). Finally, individual aspects of empathy were related to specific engineering practices. Expressions of perspective-taking and affective responses correlated with problem scoping and ideation, respectively, and qualitative analyses suggested that expressing empathy was associated with greater user-centered thinking during problem scoping and iteration.
The findings suggest that using narratives to evoke empathy is an effective strategy for supporting girls’ engagement with engineering practices. Specifically, narratives supported girls in defining and solving problems from the user’s point of view, a critical skill that can be difficult to support when engineering problems are overly constrained. The results have implications for the design of inclusive engineering activities that reframe engineering as an empathetic and human-centered discipline.

Authors

• Susan M. Letourneau, New York Hall of Science

• Dorothy Bennett, New York Hall of Science

• ChangChia James Liu, New York Hall of Science

• Yessenia Argudo, New York Hall of Science

• Katherine McMillan Culp, New York Hall of Science