EMPATHY COMPETENCY OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS

DOI: 10.18173/2354-1067.2023-0077

Abstract

Although empirical studies have shown the role of teachers’ empathy in enhancing connection with students as well as improving teaching quality, empathy competency in teachers has not been researched much in Vietnam. This study was conducted to investigate the empathy capacity of high school teachers in three areas: Hanoi, Hai Duong, and Hoa Binh, and examine the impact of demographic factors such as age, gender, and seniority of work on the level of teachers' empathy. A total of 412 teachers were invited to participate in the study through semi-structured interviews and answered two survey tools including the Basic Empathy Scale (BES) of Jolliffe and Farrington (2006) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (Davis, 1980, 1983). The results showed that high school teachers within the current study demonstrated a fairly good level of empathy; Female teachers showed better empathy competency with students than male teachers; Teachers in Hai Duong showed the best empathy and teachers in Hoa Binh showed the third highest empathy. Notably, teachers with less than 5 years of experience and more than 15 years of experience had low empathy, while teachers with 10-15 years of experience had the best empathy capacity. Accordingly, the article includes suitable discussions and suggestions for further studies on empathy capacity in teachers