Filipino public-school teachers' empathy: A cross-sectional, descriptive study

Abstract

This cross-sectional study describes Filipino public school teachers' empathy levels and whether these levels are affected by attributes such as age, sex at birth, educational attainment, years of service, and grade level taught. One hundred forty-six public school teachers agreed to participate in a survey conducted during in-service training. Teacher participants reported above average levels of affective, cognitive, and overall empathy. Among the attributes, years of service were found to have significant results from non-parametric analysis. Teachers teaching for 1-5 years had significantly higher affective and overall empathy than those teaching for 16-20 years. No such differences were observed for cognitive empathy. The implications of this decreasing trend in affective empathy, but not cognitive empathy, to length of service were discussed. Recommendations were also provided to address the possible varied effects of cognitive and affective empathy on teachers’ well-being and empathy as a risk or protective factor.