Empathy for Engagement in The Zone of Proximal Development in Continuing Education Programs: An “Unsuccessful” Study, But Not So Much

This research explores empathy's potential impact on adult learners' enthusiasm and performance to create a supportive and enriching educational setting. The central hypothesis of this study is that instructors who demonstrate empathy towards their adult students are likely to achieve higher evaluation scores. The study's contribution to the academic dialogue is substantial, as it underscores the importance of empathy in creating a positive and productive learning environment. At Tecnologico de Monterrey, the andragogical model of continuing education is called INSPIRA. Continuing education instructors course a workshop to integrate the model into their teaching. Also, the participants evaluate them within the educational context. The assessments provided by the participants were subjected to a text-mining quantitative analysis approach for thorough examination. By employing an inductive analysis of the written comments, the most commonly utilized terms by participants to portray the instructors' performance were identified. It was anticipated that the term “empathy” would hold a prominent position based on the outcomes of the course evaluations. An evaluation of the comments was conducted as part of this study. Despite the relatively low occurrence of the concept of empathy, the study managed to pinpoint the most esteemed aspects of continuing education programs. We provide valuable steps to increase engagement through empathy, which can be directly applied in educational settings. This engagement fuels adult learners to enter the zone of proximal development.