Teaching Pupils Empathy Measurably Improves Their Creative Abilities
A new research paper published on February 2021, in the journal Improving Schools, suggests that empathy improves creativity.
In a year-long study, researchers looked at year 9 pupils, aged 13-14 from two inner London schools.
The pupils were split into two groups. One took extra design and technology (D&T) lessons planned out to boost creativity. While the other group followed the prescribed regular curriculum.
Interestingly, the first D&T group got 78% higher creativity scores. They were also tested for empathy by looking at their emotional expressiveness and open-mindedness.
Finding that the lessons in boosting creativity, empathy, and problem-solving improved overall engagement with learning.
The researchers discovered that heightened empathy not only increases creativity, but it also increased overall engagement with learning activities.
The study is part of a long-term collaboration between the Faculty of Education and the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge called ‘Designing Our Tomorrow’ (DOT).
A project that helps pupils see situations from different perspectives, considering the feelings of others.
