Using Humanities-Driven STEM to Develop Empathetic Positions in Engineering Undergraduate Students: A Discourse Analysis

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Empathy, Relationality, and Justice in Teaching and Learning

Abstract

We explore how coursework at the intersection of STEM and humanities might increase empathetic dispositions for undergraduate engineering students. This study takes place in an honors-based history/technology course focusing on World War II, co-taught by a professor of history and professor of engineering. Throughout the course, students completed projects in which they were asked to reverse engineer technical problems of WWII, but were sometimes asked to "empathize," considering broader social and humanitarian concerns associated with their technical problems. Using discourse analysis to examine how students empathized when instructed, we found that they had more to write, were able to align themselves with stakeholders in the wars, better anticipated readers' needs, and wrote with more subjective, rather than objective voices.

Authors

• Joshua M Cruz, Texas Tech University

• John Carrell, Texas Tech University

• Erika Nunez, Texas Tech University