The Pilot Study

The Impact of Educator Empathetic Mindset on Expectations of Students and Perceptions of Student Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot study was to explore teachers’ mindsets of empathy and how they relate to their expectations of students. Public middle school teachers were surveyed. This study used a mixed methods research approach, gathering both qualitative and quantitative data.

Action/Innovation

This action research pilot study was inspired by a 2016 study titled, “Brief intervention to encourage empathic discipline cuts suspension rates in half among adolescents” (Okanofau, et al., 2016). The original study was a larger scale study in which middle school educators were provided a brief, one-time, independently administered intervention. The subsequent suspension rate of the intervention group’s students was found to be about half that of the suspension rate for students of the control group, teachers who had not received the intervention (Okanofau, et al., 2016).

This pilot study was a small scale, partial replication, intended to compare the mindset survey responses of participants who received a brief, one-time, self-administered intervention on teacher empathy to the responses of middle school educators in a control group. While the original study compared the suspension rates of students who had intervention teachers compared to the students of control group educators, the focus of this study was the comparison of intervention educator responses on a mindsets of empathy survey to control group responses.

Instruments

The electronic survey included teacher demographic information, as well as ten questions from the Building Equity Audit, Staff Version in the areas of social-emotional engagement, opportunities to learn, instructional excellence, and engaged and inspired learners (Smith, et al, 2017). Half of the participants were randomly assigned to read “Teaching with Empathy: Why It’s Important” by Amanda Morin, which was written as an educator’s guide for the implantation of empathy in the classroom, prior to taking the survey (Morin, 2020).

Data Sources

Quantitative data were collected in the form of educator demographics, including age range, education level, teaching content area, number of years teaching, and middle school grade levels taught. Additional qualitative data were collected using a Likert scale in conjunction with the Building Equity Audit, Staff Version questions (Smith, et al, 2017).

Quantitative data were collected by directing participants to provide written examples of their teaching practices that related to several of the Building Equity Audit, Staff Version questions (Smith, et al, 2017).

Data Analysis Results for Quantitative Data

Ten questions were selected from the areas of social-emotional engagement, opportunities to learn, instructional excellence, and engaged and inspired learners from the Building Equity Staff Audit was also completed (Smith, et al, 2017). Three of the questions directly related to the educator’s mindset of empathy, two related to student expectations, and five to the educators’ teaching practices, which are influenced by their mindset of empathy and expectations of students (See tables below).

Data Analysis Results for Qualitative Data

Three open ended, long answer interview questions were asked of participants. The first, “Please share an example of teachers and staff showing that they care about students from your teaching practices,” which was an expansion of an empathy mindset quantitative question, not unexpectedly, received responses that trended toward the empathy mindset theme for all participants

“Please share an example of discipline from your teaching practices,” an extension of a teaching practices quantitative question, tied to themes of both empathy and expectations. The responses of the intervention group indicated one response of "not applicable," by a first year virtual teacher, and another that stated, “student will get in trouble, get in school suspension (or out of school suspension), and do the same thing a week later...” These two more in depth responses indicate that the intervention group may not have been as positive as the quantitative data indicated.

The final qualitative question of, “please share an example from your teaching practices of building creativity and problem-solving skills in students,” also related to a teaching practices question and resulted in both empathy and expectation responses. The results do not indicate a clear distinction between the control and intervention groups.

Additional Factors Regarding Results

Had the demographic data been collected and analyzed prior to the intervention and used to form intervention and control groups, then teaching experience, grade level, and content area could have been more evenly matched and compared. Not only could evenly matching such factors increase the reliability, but instructional methods have vastly changed due to the COVID19 pandemic, impacting teaching practices to the extent that previous years may not be comparable to the 2020-2021 school year, when these data were collected.