Service Learning and Ethnocultural Empathy: Developing Cultural Empathy Through Experience

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore the impact of experiential learning (through service learning) and ethnocultural empathy in undergraduate students. In other words, how does serving in the community impact how empathetic a person is toward others who are ethnically different than themselves? The researcher developed a 45 question electronic self-report survey utilizing The Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy (SEE; Wang et al., 2003) to assess mean empathy scores of participants. Research questions addressed: 1) Empathy scores of students who volunteered 10 or more hours, 2) Empathy scores of students who volunteered and served adult populations, 3) Empathy scores of students who are required to volunteer as part of a course, 4) Empathy scores of female students compared to male students. Results comparing mean SEE scores to each research question showed females and students who volunteer 10 hours or more have higher empathy scores.