Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: As schools place growing emphasis on social-emotional learning (SEL), educators are increasingly called upon to integrate students' social and emotional development with academic instruction across disciplines, including science. While empathy has received considerable attention in general education research, little empirical work has examined how science teachers conceptualize empathic instruction or its role in SEL-oriented science teaching. This exploratory qualitative study examined how experienced science teachers describe empathic science teaching and its contribution to students' social-emotional learning and preparation for future life outcomes. Two experienced science teachers, one secondary and one postsecondary, participated in semi-structured interviews, and transcripts were analyzed using a hybrid thematic analysis approach combining deductive and inductive coding to identify recurring patterns across participants' perspectives. Five interrelated themes emerged: understanding students' emotional experiences, understanding students' perspectives, backgrounds, and lived experiences, attentive listening, active engagement in students' lives, and teaching with students' future development in mind. Participants described empathic teaching as extending beyond academic instruction to fostering supportive learning environments that encourage student agency, social-emotional growth, and preparation for responsible participation in society. This exploratory study contributes to the growing literature on empathic teaching in science education and underscores the need for further research, with larger and more diverse samples, on the role of empathy in science learning and teacher preparation.
Source: Research Square
Authors: Freda Alabi, Isaac Taylor, Isaac Sonful Coffie
Institutions: Morgan State University, University of the Sunshine Coast
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204451759