Fostering Empathic Skills in Mainstream Public School Pupils: Efficacy Assessment of the EPaN Empathy Training Program

Sebastian Ludwig Hirn,Joachim Thomas,Christof Zoelch,Regina Weißmann

doi:10.11114/jets.v8i3.4689

Abstract

Empathic skills are called for in every social interaction, but there are few evidence-based programs in the mainstream public school sector exclusively dedicated to fostering the empathic sub-components of recognition of emotions, emotional perspective taking and affective responsiveness in pupils. The EPaN program is based on the latest scientific knowledge and best practices that can be taught in the classroom.In the course of eight school weeks, using a pre-post-test design we studied the effectiveness of an empathy training program (EPaN) in nine classes with a total of 123 mainstream public school pupils aged 11.2 to 15.2 years, divided into intervention groups that were assigned a total of 24 exercises of 15 to 40 minutes duration and control groups that followed the regular lesson plan.After the training, variance analysis showed a significant improvement in the empathic sub-capacities for recognition of emotion, emotional perspective taking and affective responsiveness in the intervention groups compared to the control groups. These results are examined in light of their importance and adaptability of the EPaN program to educational practice.

Highlights

Social skills as available actional, cognitive and emotional behaviors (Döpfner, 1989; Hinsch & Pfingsten, 2015) count among the important key competencies in the world of work (Maier & Rappensberger, 1999). They are cited in the same vein in the school sector – as in the Supreme Educational Objectives set out in Article 131 of the Bavarian Constitution and in the Law on Education and Training (BayEUG) in Article 1 dealing with the educational and training mission, as well as in Article 2 of the BayEUG addressing the tasks of schools – and worldwide (Elias, 2006)
The development of empathic skills forms the necessary basis for the soft skills called for by a school’s training and education goals (Haep & Steins, 2016), but in the extracurricular context indicates an individual’s growing capacity to perceive and understand another person's feelings, thoughts and motives and act on them commensurately
The purpose of the present study was to test the effectiveness of the empathy fostering program (EPaN) that we developed based on the theory by Hirn and colleagues (2018) adjusted for the needs of the current student body in the mainstream public school system

Summary

Introduction

Social skills as available actional, cognitive and emotional behaviors (Döpfner, 1989; Hinsch & Pfingsten, 2015) count among the important key competencies in the world of work (Maier & Rappensberger, 1999) They are cited in the same vein in the school sector – as in the Supreme Educational Objectives set out in Article 131 of the Bavarian Constitution and in the Law on Education and Training (BayEUG) in Article 1 dealing with the educational and training mission, as well as in Article 2 of the BayEUG addressing the tasks of schools – and worldwide (Elias, 2006). Cognitive developments in adolescence accelerate due to biological changes in the brain, helping youngsters progressively exploit

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