Teacher Empathy and Science Education: A Collective Case Study

Abstract

To initiate dialogue on empathy in science classroom, its role in science teaching, and to encourage science teacher education researchers and faculty to consider the role of empathy in science teaching, we conducted an instrumental collective case study with five science education graduate students at a Research-I university in the US. Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Within-case and across-case analyses were performed to interpret the data from the individual interviews and compare them with one and another. Our findings collectively speak to our participants’ perspectives of empathy in science teaching. Finally, we discuss implications for teacher education and professional development and the need for learning sciences and science education research to systematically examine teacher empathy and student learning.