Assessing course goals is often challenging; assessing an abstract goal, like empathy, can be especially so. For many instructors, empathy is central to sociological thinking. As such, fostering empathy in students is a common course goal. In this article, we report the initial findings of a semester-long assessment of empathy change in undergraduate students (N = 619). We employ a mixed-methods research design that utilizes qualitative instructor data to determine independent instructor-level variables and student surveys to measure student empathy change. We compare empathy change between students enrolled in introductory sociology classes to students not enrolled in sociology classes and test which student and instructor variables predict empathy change. We find that students taking sociology classes have positive empathy change compared to those who do not. We interpret these findings as evidence that study of sociology promotes empathy development and discuss implications for the classroom and further research.

中文翻译：

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社会学课程会让学生更有同情心吗？大学生移情变化的混合方法研究

评估课程目标通常具有挑战性；评估一个抽象的目标，比如同理心，尤其如此。对于许多教师来说，同理心是社会学思维的核心。因此，培养学生的同理心是一个共同的课程目标。在本文中，我们报告了对本科生（N = 619）同理心变化进行为期一个学期的评估的初步结果。我们采用混合方法研究设计，利用定性讲师数据来确定独立的讲师级别变量和学生调查，以衡量学生的同理心变化。我们将参加社会学入门课程的学生与未参加社会学课程的学生之间的移情变化进行比较，并测试哪些学生和教师变量可以预测移情变化。我们发现，与没有参加社会学课程的学生相比，参加社会学课程的学生具有积极的同理心变化。我们将这些发现解释为社会学研究促进同理心发展的证据，并讨论对课堂和进一步研究的影响。