Engineering Students' Experiences of Empathy in Entrepreneurial Pre-accelerators: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2024
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This thesis is a hermeneutic phenomenological study of engineering students’ lived experiences of empathy within entrepreneurial pre-acceleration programs. The trend towards preparing holistic engineers with developed entrepreneurial and other transferable skills has been formed in recent years. This trend has encouraged educational institutions to introduce various entrepreneurial educational interventions into engineering curricula to foster entrepreneurial skills, mindset, and other professional and transferable capabilities in engineers. Empathy is one of the essential competencies for both engineering and entrepreneurship fields.
It is expected that entrepreneurial educational interventions in the engineering curriculum would also contribute to developing the empathy of future entrepreneurial engineers. These expectations are justified by the widespread use of approaches in which empathic experiences play a key role. It is also justified by the important role that empathy plays in various entrepreneurial phases and processes. However, despite the importance of empathy and its wide representation in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial education, it is not entirely clear how entrepreneurial engineers experience this phenomenon, and which experiences and environmental elements may prefigure this phenomenon.
This hermeneutic phenomenology study was conducted to develop a sophisticated understanding of empathy in entrepreneurial engineering. The aim was to focus on how engineering students experience empathy within entrepreneurial programs and illuminate their lived experience of this phenomenon. Also, this study sheds light on what specific experiences or elements within entrepreneurial programs shape engineering students’ empathy. The lived experiences of twenty engineering students who participated in four different Australian university-based pre-acceleration entrepreneurial programs were examined.
As a result, a contextual model of empathy has been proposed that demonstrates that empathy is experienced by engineering students in entrepreneurial pre-acceleration programs as a multiphase process that is related to different attributes and orientations. This phenomenon is shaped by four experiences (starting with a broad question, talking with a purpose, being touched through listening to stories, and observing “clicking” situations). It may be prefigured by four different program elements (design process, the community of practice, diversity of opinions, and market).
Educators, scholars, and other practitioners can use the outcomes of this research. Firstly, it can help them form their own understanding of empathy in entrepreneurial engineering, which can then serve as a starting point for further research on empathy in various types of engineering. Secondly, the proposed contextual model of empathy can be used when designing and implementing educational activities and programs focused on developing this phenomenon in different types of engineers.
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