This article examines how "Off Centre," a play by Haresh Sharma about mental health in Singapore, first devised and produced by The Necessary Stage (TNS) in 1993, provides a valuable opportunity for audiences to encounter characters labeled "mad" or "off centre" (a colloquial term in Singapore for being mentally ill),…

Higher education in pedagogy is abundant in theoretical courses and knowledge, whereas practicum in schools in Russia, for example, only takes place in the 3rd or 4th year of the bachelor's degree programme, with a maximum length of 4 weeks, thus leaving the theoretical propositions without proper application. The gap between theory and real life…

Many universities focus on improving pedagogy through training sessions related to technology and assessment. However, what is missing is an emphasis on the humanistic side of teaching, specifically emphasizing empathy in the classroom. This essay makes an argument for faculty to employ empathy in their teaching. Empathy is a learned behavior that…

Empathy in healthcare professionals is associated with better treatment outcomes and higher satisfaction among patients with chronic pain. Activity patterns play an essential role in the adjustment of these patients and, as a pain behaviour, may have a communicative function and elicit distinct empathic responses. This study investigated whether…

Empathy emerges as a pivotal skill in creative writing, yet previous studies lack an understanding of empathy's multidimensionality and specific impact of its facets on the capacity to generate narrative stories. This cross-sectional study delved into the various cognitive and affective empathy facets --that is, perspective-taking, online…

Undergraduate students throughout the United States are tasked with making many large and small decisions, frequently for the first time. To their detriment, undergraduate students are, often times, removed from familiar surroundings which may have provided much-needed support for these emerging adults. Across university parishes, Catholic student…

According to UNESCO, educating all children in the same classrooms, with adequate support and taking into consideration their different needs, provides benefits for everyone. However, public opinion about inclusive education is rarely uniform and often unsupportive. While public support for placing pupils with special needs in regular classes is…

Objective: The present study aimed to examine the role of positive problem solving in the relation between perspective taking and relationship satisfaction. Participants: One hundred and four college students participated in the present study, if they had been in a romantic relationship for a minimum of six months. Methods: Participants completed…

Background: Empathy is a critical skill required by disability workers. Virtual reality may increase access to staff training to foster empathy. Method: A mixed methods feasibility study investigated a custom-built virtual reality program, IMercyVE, which aimed to immerse a disability worker in a first-person perspective of having intellectual…

In this activity, students individually rank 12 fictional individuals based on a description of them and their likeliness to survive the zombie apocalypse. There is no right answer, and as such, students will rank the fictional characters differently. Students must come together and determine the top six characters and provide rationales for their…

In an increasingly globalized world, empathy has been identified as a core competency of future global citizens and thus as an important skill to be fostered in global citizenship education (GCE). Despite this, however, what empathy "is," and "how" it can play the pivotal role often claimed for it in the literature, have not…

Design thinking fundamentally relies on abductive reasoning. Diverse thinking types such as divergent thinking, systems thinking, and empathetic thinking have been adopted in design thinking education. Yet, it is very rare to address abductive reasoning to be integrated in a design thinking course because of deductive validity and inductive…

In this article, we amplify the voices of visually impaired people to explore the authenticity of simulating visual impairment (VI) as a means of developing empathy among sighted student teachers. Participants were nine visually impaired adults who read vignettes narrating simulation experiences of student teachers in a university setting before…

Building on research showing social-emotional benefits from a single live theater performance, this study tests for significant differences in pre to post social-cognitive outcomes among a racially and economically diverse sample of young audiences who attended the same theater performance with or without additional pre- and post-show educational…

The US population is becoming increasingly older. Alongside the changing mental and physical capacities that accompany aging, reduced visual function is a common occurrence for older adults. Empathy is an important and useful skill for interior designers in that this ability is extremely helpful for understanding older adults' experience in the…