Work in Progress: Fostering Empathetic Engineers by Practicing Contextual Listening - A Case Study

This work in progress research-to-practice paper proposes an approach that can encourage students to think about defining problems in socio-technical terms. One of the main goals of engineering curricula is to foster the ability of students to define a problem and propose an engineering solution. Students engage in an analysis of the criteria and constraints of a given event which leads them to develop a problem statement that they propose a solution for within a given time frame. The paper suggests that developing the skill of contextual listening is a pillar to socio-technical thinking. The work is based on a theoretical model of empathy in engineering developed by Walther, Miller, and Sochacka [1]. This model conceptualizes empathy as a skill and a professional way of being. One of the skills for empathic communication is contextual listening which is different from basic listening. The paper will present a study which a student undertook over the span of a semester to implement contextual listening through a hands-on project. The project addresses the nursing shortage currently present in US hospitals. Through the interviews the student practiced contextual listening to understand the needs, workloads and challenges that nurses face on a daily basis. The student also conducted a literature review to check if themes identified through the interviews are also present in the literature. The paper will present the results of the literature review, the interviews and the lessons learned about teaching and practicing contextual listening.