Teaching children to empathize with others measurably improves their creativity, and could potentially lead to several other benefits, new research suggests.
The findings are from a year-long University of Cambridge study with Design and Technology (D&T) year 9 pupils at two London schools. Pupils at School A spent the year following the standard curriculum, while School B's D&T lessons used a set of engineering design thinking tools to foster students? creativity and empathy in solving real-world problems.
Both sets of pupils were assessed for creativity at the start and end of the school year using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking: a well-established psychological test.
The results showed a significant increase in creativity among pupils at School B. At the start, the creativity scores of pupils in School A were 11% higher than those at School B. By the end, however, creativity scores from School B were 78% higher.
Pupils from School B again scored higher in categories such as "emotional expressiveness" and "open-mindedness"，indicating an improvement in empathy was driving the overall creativity scores.
Meanwhile, the study suggests encouraging empathy can deepen pupils' general engagement with learning. They found that boys in School B showed an improvement in emotional expression, scoring 64% higher at the end of the year than at the start，while girls improved more regarding cognitive empathy，showing 62% more perspective-taking.
The research is part of a long-term cooperation between the Faculty of Education and the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, led by Bill Nicholl and Ian Hosking. "Teaching for empathy has been problematic despite being part of the National Curriculum for over two decades. It's vital if we want education to encourage the designers and engineers of tomorrow." said Nicholl.
