Empathy and education: trainee teachers empathy performance implications. Comparative analysis between the University of Castille la-Mancha and autonomous University of Chile

Authors

  • Lola Segarra Muñoz University of Murcia
  • María Dolores Muñoz Vallejo UCLM
  • Juana Segarra Muñoz UNED
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6018/reifop.19.3.267331
Keywords: Empathy, teacher education, teacher appraisal

Abstract

This study examined the empathic skills of future teachers and the educational implications of the results obtained.

40 students of Pedagogy in Physical Education at the Faculty of Education of Temuco (UA/Chile) and 40 students of Nursery and Infant Education at the Faculty of Education in Cuenca (UCLM/Spain) participated.

Students were evaluated by means of the questionnaire TECA (2008) which includes four scales, two designed to measure cognitive empathy: perspectives adoption (AP) and emotional comprehension (CE) and two designed to measure  affective empathy: empathic stress (EE) and empathic happiness (AE). TECA recommends that practicing teachers should have a high level of cognitive empathy and a medium to low level of affective empathy.

The results demonstrate insufficient levels of cognitive empathy in both samples (between 70% and 85%) and an appropriate level of affective empathy (between 85% and 98%). The ideal global profile is achieved by only 7’5% in both groups.

In summary, student teachers surveyed showed an underperformance in cognitive empathic skills.  It would therefore be advisable to look at training as a matter of some urgency and control the access of suitably qualified staff to teaching posts in order to ensure an improvement in the quality of education.

 

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Published
13-09-2016
How to Cite
Segarra Muñoz, L., Muñoz Vallejo, M. D., & Segarra Muñoz, J. (2016). Empathy and education: trainee teachers empathy performance implications. Comparative analysis between the University of Castille la-Mancha and autonomous University of Chile. Interuniversity Electronic Journal of Teacher Formation, 19(3), 173–183. https://doi.org/10.6018/reifop.19.3.267331