Empathy Applied

I created an online version of an assessment I do in my face to face class called "Empathy Applied". It's a handout I created a few years ago and have used when asked to report on the college wide assessment of the competency "Applying Abstract Ideas to a Concrete Situation". I think it will be a great resource to have online.

The assessment starts by asking students to identify the definitions of two terms: sympathy and empathy. Next they are given a concrete situation: "You just found out that your best friend's mother has passed away." After laying out a few more contextual details the students are provided a list of behaviors/responses to that situation. They are asked to identify which statements would be representative of an empathetic response, which ones would be representative of a sympathetic response, and which ones given the situation would be neither sympathetic nor empathetic and therefore "not appropriate".

I've found that many Interpersonal textbooks do not spend a great deal of time discussing grief and how to help those who are sufferring with grief. Over the years I've found a few resources that I like, but this assessment is a great tool for helping us move away from just reading about empathy to actually talking about what it looks like. So it will be nice to now also have it online.