Perfil empático del estudiantado que accede a los estudios de grado de Educación Primaria

Abstract

The emergence of neuroscience in education is prompting us to rethink (from a neuroeducational standpoint), possible links that strengthen the recognition of the importance of empathy in initial training. We aim to determine the profile of students who enter teacher training — with a particular focus on their empathy and conception of what it means to be a teacher. The study involved 213 first-year students of the Primary Education Degree at public Andalusian universities. A dual methodolog-ical approach was employed, combining a mixed methodology that made use of information technol-ogies by using the Google Forms tool as a means of data collection. The form was composed of five blocks: participant information, sociodemographic data, motivation for choice of studies, the concep-tion of what it means to be a teacher, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) empathy test. The results revealed that the students presented satisfactory mean scores on all the factors concerning the empathy measure, with women scoring higher than men. Regarding what it means to be a teacher, empathy is the most outstanding trait for women, while for men, it is pedagogical knowledge.