What does empathy look like to you? investigating undergraduate chemistry students’ perceptions of empathy in regard to their lived experience at university

Abstract

Empathy and its impact on students’ learning experience remains an under-researched topic in the field of affective chemistry education research. The purpose of this study was to investigate tertiary students’ understanding and perceptions of empathy with regard to their lived experience at university. This qualitative study consisted of individual semi-structured interviews with 13 undergraduate students enrolled in first-year chemistry courses at an Australian university. Abductive thematic analysis of students’ interview responses revealed that students perceived empathy predominantly as cognitive and behavioural processes. Participants perceived some university teaching roles, such as tutors and laboratory demonstrators, to be higher in empathy than others, such as lectures and course coordinators. In addition, participants did not perceive university infrastructure, either people-based (i.e. student support centre, technical support infrastructure, inclusion and disability infrastructure, etc.) or technology-based (i.e. online enrolment and timetabling platforms and learning management systems) to be empathetic. Participants described factors such as context and lived experience influencing their perception of empathy at university. Furthermore, participants made suggestions on ways to improve how empathy could be shown to students, including improving teacher communication; implementing empathetic course design in first-year chemistry courses; showing more leniency towards students; and increasing ease of use and access to infrastructure. This study aims to investigate empathy from the chemistry student perspective and help identify where teacher empathy could be best deployed within student–teacher interactions, specifically in tertiary chemistry education settings.

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Introduction

Emotion plays a crucial role in students’ education experience. Existing affective chemistry education research reveals the importance of chemistry students’ feelings impacting their academic performance (Flaherty, 2020; Liu et al., 2025) and heavily contributing towards their experiences of meaningful learning (Galloway and Bretz, 2015; Gupte et al., 2021). Students’ sense of belonging – the feeling of being accepted, respected, connected to their peers, staff and faculty (Strayhorn, 2018) – is also of critical value to students’ education and remains a salient feature of the students’ affective domain. Sense of belonging has long been associated with students’ learning motivation (Freeman et al., 2007), student retention (O’Keeffe, 2013), and academic performance (Fink et al., 2020). The connections of sense of belonging to students’ learning experience has also been well-explored in research pertaining to general chemistry students in tertiary education (Fink et al., 2023; Lemma et al., 2025). Of particular interest for this study is the phenomenon of empathy and its contribution to both student outcomes and sense of belonging within affective chemistry education research, as it remains an under-researched construct in this space.

Defining empathy

The term ‘empathy’ broadly refers to the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others, and consists of cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions (Cuff et al., 2016; Clark et al., 2019). The concept of empathy is of major interest within fields of psychology, health and education for the purposes of promoting humanitarian values and strengthening pastoral and clinical care (Neubauer et al., 2019). However, the term itself has lacked conceptual coherence with little consensus among researchers on a single definition (Cuff et al., 2016; Hall and Schwartz, 2019). While different conceptualisations of empathy can be beneficial, the absence of a unified definition limits how empathy is theorised, measured, and evaluated for research designs and outcomes (Hall and Schwartz, 2019).

Scholars largely agree that empathy is a multidimensional concept influenced by individual and contextual factors (Zaki, 2014; Cuff et al., 2016; Niedtfeld, 2017; Clark et al., 2019; Hall and Schwartz, 2019; Neubauer et al., 2019). In a recent critical review of multidisciplinary literature, Clark et al. (2019) defines three main empathic dimensions:

• Cognitive empathy involves the ability to understand another person's internal states, or “mentalising” (Zaki, 2014; Clark et al., 2019). In the cognitive dimension, empathy is described as drawing explicit inferences from another's intentions, beliefs, and emotions.

• Affective empathy involves the ability to feel another person's affective states, or “experience sharing” (Zaki, 2014; Clark et al., 2019). In the affective dimension, empathy is described as responding emotionally in a way that is congruent with another person (Niedtfeld, 2017).

• Behavioural empathy is the state in which cognitive and/or affective dimensions of empathy are demonstrated to another person (Clark et al., 2019). Of the three dimensions, behavioural empathy is the most contested in literature, with some scholars arguing that empathy has no associated behavioural outcome in the immediate sense (Cuff et al., 2016; Read, 2019). However, Clark et al. (2019) argue that the behavioural dimension is distinct from the other dimensions and can be observed through verbal and non-verbal forms of communication, such as behavioural mirroring (i.e. mimicking others’ facial expressions, mannerisms, postures and gestures) and empathic communication (i.e. verbal expressions of understanding, asking questions, and head nodding).

The relationships between Clark et al.'s (2019) dimensions of empathy are represented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Empathy conceptualised as three dimensions, where the cognitive and/or affective dimensions are demonstrated through the behavioural dimension.

Understanding when and how these interrelated dimensions are deployed is key to recognising how the subjective experience of empathy is shown and perceived (Zaki, 2014; Read, 2019). We use Clark et al.'s (2019) conceptualisation of empathy as cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions for this study.

The role of empathy in the classroom

Empathy is a key component in fostering both high-quality student learning and student–teacher relationships in educational settings (Cornelius-White, 2007; Sinclair et al., 2017; Meyers et al., 2019; Aldrup et al., 2020; Wynn et al., 2023). Teacher empathy is the capacity for teachers to understand students’ personal and social situations, feel care and concern in response to positive and negative student emotions, and respond compassionately to students’ needs while maintaining focus on student learning (Meyers et al., 2019). This empathy has a critical sociological role in the classroom and is a key prerequisite for the quality of student–teacher interactions and student outcomes (Aldrup et al., 2020; Wynn et al., 2023). Teacher empathy is distinct from sympathy, which Sinclair et al. (2017) define as a pity-based response that lacks relational understanding. Meyers et al. (2019) explains that a sympathetic teaching response is typically associated with lowering academic standards to rapidly relieve student distress; on the other hand, an empathetic teaching response identifies and removes obstacles to learning that increase long-term chances of student success, even after graduation.

Previous studies have sought to investigate and measure both teacher and student perspectives on the role of empathy in education (Cardoso et al., 2011; Bockmier-Sommers et al., 2017; Aldrup et al., 2020; Keyser et al., 2022; Taff and Clifton, 2022; Wang et al., 2022; Sun et al., 2023; Ampofo et al., 2025). Studies featuring secondary school students showed that teacher empathy was associated with reducing student anxiety (Aldrup et al., 2020); enhancing students’ learning behaviours (Cardoso et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2022); and positively impacting student emotional wellbeing (Ampofo et al., 2025) and academic performance (Sun et al., 2023). In addition, teacher empathy was positively associated with students’ sense of belonging in secondary schools (Cai et al., 2023); this association of empathy with student sense of belonging was also seen in the tertiary education context within college campuses (Keyser et al., 2022; Taff and Clifton, 2022). For tertiary education students, teacher empathy and high regard for teachers was also strongly related to student engagement and success (Bockmier-Sommers et al., 2017).

Studies collecting data from teachers across from all education levels also revealed similar trends (Cornelius-White, 2007; Okonofua et al., 2016; Ge et al., 2021; Wink et al., 2021; Wynn et al., 2023). High teacher empathy in the primary school setting was found to be closely related to increased closeness in student–teacher relationships and decreased feelings of teacher burnout (Wink et al., 2021). Likewise, survey responses from primary and secondary school teachers also found teacher empathy to promote student development, as well as teachers’ own professional identities (Ge et al., 2021). For tertiary education teachers, teacher empathy was a critical component in fostering connections with students, modelling collaboration and preparing students for life after college (Wynn et al., 2023). Similarly, teachers who used empathic discipline, rather than punitive measures, fostered greater respect from students while significantly reducing suspension rates from misbehaviour (Okonofua et al., 2016). Additional evidence from a meta-analysis of student–teacher relationships found teacher empathy to be one of the strongest predictors of positive student outcomes, including academic performance and affective and behavioural outcomes (Cornelius-White, 2007).

Despite the benefits of teacher empathy for student belonging and success, some scholars argue of the dangers in the over-reliance and over-use of empathy in the classroom. In a multidisciplinary literature review, and considering literature across all education levels, Garrett and Greenwalt (2010) highlight the potential for teacher empathy to increase socioemotional distance between teacher and students, and warn educators to be mindful of emotional fatigue when deploying empathy with students daily. In their critical review, and with no specific focus on any given education level, Zhou (2022) reinforces this claim, arguing that unmoderated empathy can lead to poor standards of staff behaviour, unchecked prejudice towards specific students, or emotional burnout. While teacher empathy has positive effects on student outcomes and success, the impact of its overuse on teachers’ wellbeing should also be considered.

Student perceptions of teacher empathy in tertiary education

Few studies have explored teacher and student perceptions of empathy within the tertiary education context, and fewer within tertiary STEM education. Notably, Ross et al. (2023) used a mixed-methods approach to investigate university teachers and students’ perceptions of teacher empathy across several faculties. Quantitative surveys showed that teachers’ self-perception of empathy was consistently higher than students’ perception of teacher empathy. Qualitative thematic analysis of student focus groups identified several empathic teaching traits, such as learning students’ names, asking questions to the students, active listening, checking in on students inside and outside the classroom, flexibility, and patience. Students reported feeling motivated to perform well and were less stressed in their classes if teachers displayed these empathetic traits and behaviours.

In other tertiary-level studies, Bridenbaugh et al. (2024) examined healthcare teachers’ self-perceived empathy and factors that impacted their empathy development. Similarly, Arghode et al. (2013) conducted a collective case study analysing graduate students’ perceptions of teacher empathy in science education. For both studies, thematic analysis of interview data showed that teachers possessed awareness of empathy as a multidimensional concept, which could be influenced by personal experience and demonstrated towards students in various ways. Participants recognised the role that empathy played in students’ learning, though it was equally important to identify limits and ideal situations to deploy teacher empathy (Arghode et al., 2013; Bridenbaugh et al., 2024).

There is a need to further explore the connection between empathy used by teachers and students’ perceptions of teacher empathy, particularly if this connection may be misaligned (Ross et al., 2023). This is especially pertinent for tertiary education STEM fields, where, aside from Arghode et al.'s (2013) collective-case study, research is particularly lacking. Thus, this study aimed to investigate undergraduate students’ perceptions of teacher empathy and their experiences of empathy at university. Rather than obtaining a broad student perspectives with students from multiple faculties (Ross et al., 2023), this study sought to specifically explore the perspective of chemistry students, using semi-structured interviews to obtain in-depth views of individual students’ perceptions. As a result, this present study aims to contribute to existing literature by examining undergraduate chemistry students’ perceptions of empathy within the tertiary education setting.

Research question

In this study we addressed the following research question:

How do undergraduate students enrolled in first-year chemistry courses at an Australian tertiary institution perceive ‘empathy’ with regard to their lived experience at university?

Methods

To address the research question, this study developed a semi-structured interview protocol on chemistry students’ understanding and perception of empathy with regard to their lived experience at university; participants were interviewed, and qualitative data was analysed.

Ethical statement

The research in this study (protocol number: 2022/143) adhered to ethical standards and guidelines and was approved by the institutional Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) (National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, 2023) before any data collection or analysis. Informed consent was collected from participants prior to conducting interviews. All data was de-identified prior to analysis.

Theoretical framework

This study utilised a phenomenographical approach to investigate students’ perceptions of empathy. The process of phenomenography qualitatively investigates how participants understand a single phenomenon (i.e. empathy at university) and how this phenomenon may be diversely experienced or interpreted (Sims, 2024). Several studies within education and medicine contexts have utilised a similar approach to investigate student perceptions of empathy (Baillie, 1996; Tavakol et al., 2012; Hooker, 2015; Neubauer et al., 2019; Jobling and Alberti, 2022). This framework guided the researchers to explore students’ subjective experience of empathy from which new insights can inform and re-orient our understanding of empathy in the tertiary education setting (Laverty, 2003; Creswell and Poth, 2016).

Data collection

Data for this study was obtained from an Australian university in 2023. Potential participants were recruited via convenience sampling from first-year undergraduate students who were currently enrolled in chemistry courses at the time of conducting the study. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted in September 2023. An email announcement containing information about the study and the participant consent form were sent to the whole first-year chemistry cohort; of the 961 students contacted, 44 students expressed interest in the study. Thirteen interviews were conducted (chosen at random from the original 44 students) in-person or online via Zoom version 6.0.4 (Zoom Video Communications, 2023) based on participant preference, ranging from 14–68 minutes in length. Prior to each interview, participant consent was obtained via a digital consent form. After thirteen interviews, the researchers determined that saturation of themes had been met, and no new or surprising insights were expected from new interviews, and therefore data collection was concluded (Knott et al., 2022). Each participant received an AUD$20 digital gift card as reimbursement for their time.

All participants were students enrolled in one of two first-year chemistry courses (CHEM1A or CHEM1B) at the time of conducting the interviews. Out of thirteen participants, five reported pursuing a Bachelor of Medical Science degree as part of their studies. Other reported programs included Science (3), Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (2), or other (Education, Liberal Arts, Psychology, 1 each). Eight participants were domestic students, and ten participants spoke English as a first language. Other student identifiers, such as gender, race/ethnicity, and first-generation status were not taken into consideration as the study was not targeted towards any particular demographic of interest. Interviews were audio recorded and transcripts were generated using Otter.ai for Windows version 3.61 (Otter.ai Inc, 2023) or transcription software built-in to Microsoft Word (version 2409) (Microsoft Word, 2023). The interview protocol was a pre-written topic guide of structured questions, though spontaneous follow-up questions were used to further probe participants’ responses and allow greater interview adaptability based on interviewer and participant interactions (Knott et al., 2022). The interview protocol covered the following categories to investigate chemistry students’ understanding and perceptions of empathy at university (see supplementary information (SI) for full codebook):

1. Participant's personal definition of empathy

2. Participant's experience of empathy at university, particularly when interacting with different university teaching roles and university infrastructure, such as:

a. Tutors

b. Laboratory demonstrators

c. Lecturers

d. Course coordinators

e. “People-based infrastructure”

f. “Technology-based infrastructure”

3. Participant's response to Clark et al.'s (2019) definition of empathy provided; and

4. Participant's suggestions to improve empathy shown to students by the university.

The setting and responsibilities of each type of university teaching role and service is summarised in Table 1.

Table 1 Summary of university teaching roles and university infrastructure

Teaching role/infrastructure	Setting/description	# of contact hours with students per week	# of students per teacher	Role demographics
Tutors	Classrooms	1 h	30–40	Casual teaching staff
Laboratory demonstrators	Laboratories	1.5–3 h	18 (90 total per laboratory class with 4–5 demonstrators)	Casual teaching staff
Lecturers	Lecture halls (in-person) or remote (online/hybrid/asynchronous delivery)	Up to 3 h (in-person/online/hybrid)	300 (in-person/hybrid)	Teaching academics
		0 h (asynchronous delivery)
Course coordinators	Administrative role with minimal contact with students. Course coordinators may also lecturer and/or tutor in the same course	Varied (may meet with individual students to discuss problems related to academic conduct and course requirements)	All students enrolled in a course	Teaching academics
People-based infrastructure	Person-based services for students, including (but not limited to): student help centre, inclusion and disability, special considerations, and mental health counselling	Varied (students engage with services when required)	All students enrolled at university	N/A
Technology-based infrastructure	Online service platforms responsible for enrolment and timetabling services, learning management systems	Varied (students engage with services when required)	All students enrolled at university	N/A

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Data analysis

Abductive thematic analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts. Abductive analysis uses a combination of inductive and deductive methods to make inferences from qualitative data (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996). This type of analysis was chosen to gain a comprehensive understanding of participants’ experiences while facilitating theoretical generalisability of qualitative findings (Thompson, 2022). Interview coding was conducted by the researchers in NVivo Version 14 (Lumivero, 2023). Initial coding by one research team member identified common implicit and explicit patterns from participants’ phrases and sentences (Saldaña, 2013). For this study, multiple participant responses could be coded into multiple themes. Additional coding cycles were conducted to organise codes into themes, generating an initial codebook from four interview transcripts. This codebook was used by a second research team member to assess intercoder reliability (Saldaña, 2013). NVivo's coding comparison query function was used to determine the extent to which the two coders agreed. This established an initial Kappa coefficient of 0.95 (95% agreement), which was above the desired 80% threshold (Campbell et al., 2013). The second research team member then independently conducted a second thematic coding process on the remaining nine interview transcripts, creating a second expanded codebook with revised themes (see SI for full interview protocol). Assessing interrater reliability with the original research team member established a Kappa coefficient of 0.84 (84% agreement), which was also above the desired threshold. These codes were then discussed until 100% agreement on all codes was reached. Two additional members of the research team conducted an independent audit to validate the revised codebook as part of the literature precedent for addressing and validating intercoder reliability in qualitative thematic analyses (Campbell et al., 2013).

Results

Abductive thematic analysis

Abductive thematic analysis of participants’ interview transcripts yielded five main themes summarised in Table 2 and discussed in more detail in the following subsections.

Table 2 Main themes and corresponding quotes identified from interviews (n = 13)

Theme	Example quote
Chemistry students describe and understand empathy as cognitive and behavioural experiences	“Empathy is being able to show appreciation and comprehension towards others and adapt your behaviour in response to their behaviour and whatever they're going through” (Participant #3)
Chemistry students perceive their tutors and laboratory demonstrators to be relatively high in empathy	“I feel like especially for first years, they're pretty aware that we're we might not be as familiar with the safety protocols, so they're always reminding us about wearing our gloves and not using our gloves while we're touching our devices. Yeah, I feel like they're really empathetic and they really understand our points of view” (Participant #11)
Chemistry students do not have many empathetic experiences with lecturers or course coordinators	“I would say it's because lectures [are] almost like [a] one-sided conversation. Your lecturers talk, you sit, listen, take notes, you leave… I wouldn't say I have experienced anything from them that makes me feel like you understand they show empathy. But I didn't have really a particularly bad experience as well. I would just say like, neutral, no big comments” (Participant #12)
Chemistry students do not expect to perceive university infrastructure to be empathetic	“There's no real empathy to anything, because, you know, it's sort of like a transaction in a way, like I'm going to them for help… in the context of uni[versity], it's like I go for a service that the uni[versity] operates and runs, and the person is providing that service, and that's it” (Participant #5)
Suggestions to improve empathy shown towards chemistry students	“I think it's continuing to build personal relationships and have tutors and demonstrators and lecturers bring in that energy and the passion that makes you want to learn… it's thinking, ‘What do my students want to hear right now? How can I present this information so that they are most engaged?’ (Participant #7).

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Chemistry students describe and understand empathy as cognitive and behavioural experiences

To determine how students understand empathy in their lived experience, participants were first asked “in your own words, can you describe what ‘empathy’ means to you in your personal life?”. In response, nine of thirteen participants described empathy as a cognitive experience, and six of thirteen described empathy as a behavioural experience. Two of thirteen participants referred to both cognitive and behavioural dimensions in their response. Participants understanding of empathy as a cognitive experience aligned with Clark et al.'s (2019) description of cognitive empathy as “mentalising” or understanding another's emotions, using phrases such as “thinking how that would make you feel” (Participant #2) and “understanding each other's perspective” (Participant #4). Alternatively, participants describing empathy as a behavioural experience explained the need to “adapt your behaviour… in response to [the other's] behaviour” (Participant #3). These participants who raised the behavioural elements of empathy specifically named empathic behaviours, including verbal forms of empathic communication (Clark et al., 2019) such as verbally offering support (Participant #6) or sharing similar experiences together (Participant #8). In addition, two of thirteen participants described empathy as a cognitive and affective experience, asserting the need to understand another's emotions while “[feeling] what they’re going through” (Participant #11), mirroring Clark et al.'s (2019) description of “experience sharing” as part of affective empathy.

Later in the interviews, when participants were provided Clark et al.'s (2019) definition of empathy as cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions, all thirteen participants agreed with the conceptualisation. Seven participants reflected on their experiences of empathy within each of the three dimensions, while the remaining six participants made no further comments on their responses. Of the former, all seven participants reported aligning with the cognitive dimension closer than the affective or behavioural, commenting that the cognitive dimension was “the most applicable” (Participant #10) and “definitely [resonated]” (Participant #9) with their experiences. Further, these participants stated difficulty in deploying the affective and behavioural dimensions; one participant commented that they were not sure if “people feel what I feel in the context of their academics” (Participant #3), explaining that their perception of the university campus was an environment that did not promote empathy. Clark et al. (2019) posits that the affective dimension can often be difficult to be conscious of in practice, which may explain participants’ experiences aligning close to the cognitive dimension rather than the affective. Students’ reflection on their empathic understanding within Clark et al.'s (2019) conceptualisation of empathy further underline the impact of context that alters how empathy can be shown to and perceived from others (Zaki, 2014).

Chemistry students perceive their tutors and laboratory demonstrators to be relatively high in empathy

Participants were asked to describe their experience of empathy with different university teaching roles, and if possible, recall specific instances and examples with the teaching roles. Twelve participants reported perceiving their chemistry tutors to be highly empathetic compared to other roles such as lecturers and course coordinators. Participants described tutors to be “patient and understanding” of students’ circumstances (Participant #4) and “willing to come up with a solution” to address students’ concerns accordingly” (Participant #9). One participant described a scenario with a struggling student in their chemistry tutorial:

“During like my last Chem [tutorial] this week, there was a student who was struggling and, [they were] constantly apologising for not being correct. But the tutor was saying ‘it's okay, you don't have to be right all the time, that's why you're here, you're in the tutorial to learn!’ I feel like the tutors can connect in a way that I can also connect to them” (Participant #5).

While addressing students’ emotional concerns, participants noted that chemistry tutors performed other empathetic actions, such as: re-explaining difficult course content by “[adjusting] their wording” or “working out the problem in a different method” (Participant #6); revising tutorial sessions by “[catering] the class to what [the students] needed” (Participant #7); and acknowledging students’ difficulties with late assignment submissions, resulting in students “never [feeling] too stressed about assignments” (Participant #12). Markedly, teachers’ ability to acknowledge students’ concerns and subsequently adjust courses or lesson plans to accommodate students’ circumstances has been explored extensively within the context of COVID-19, where “compassionate flexibility” remains paramount in the communication of care to students beyond the pandemic (Gelles et al., 2020).

Likewise, eleven participants also perceived their laboratory demonstrators to be highly empathetic, demonstrating similar empathetic traits of patience (Participant #6), situational understanding (Participant #3), and flexibility (Participant #4) perceived in tutors. Participants specifically highlighted their laboratory demonstrators showing empathy when helping to solve “issues with the calculations or formulating the correct method” (Participant #9), as well as answering questions about content “beyond the labs”, particularly around “the theory behind mechanisms [and] why they [occurred]” (Participant #11). Another participant described the demonstrators’ presence in the laboratory helped to create a “support system” that was “always ready to help” even when assistance was not needed (Participant #13). For example, one participant described a recent situation in their laboratory class:

“It was pretty long experiment, there was this stressful situation for the other people who were left around, because some people already left. But our demonstrators said, ‘it's fine, you guys are doing well.’… at times, we kept asking them, ‘[Was] the right thing? Are we doing it correctly?’ And they never at all showed us that they were getting agitated. They were always there trying to help everybody out and trying to see that everybody's doing it correctly” (Participant #13).

At the same time, participants appreciated laboratory demonstrators’ awareness of students’ anxiety around being in a new environment; laboratory demonstrators were gentle in reminding first-year students who “might not be as familiar with the safety protocols” (Participant #11), while also demonstrating no judgement of students “even if [students] ask the simplest questions” (Participant #1). When discussing both tutors and laboratory demonstrators, another participant reported that it was much easier to communicate with these teaching roles, feeling less stressed to make mistakes in their work:

“I’ll joke around with tutors and demonstrators without any real thought to it or anything like that, because I’m not worried about anything, like for example, getting a question wrong… I feel it's okay to be quote unquote vulnerable with being wrong or being myself.” (Participant #5)

The empathetic traits and behaviours described by participants in this study align with similar student responses in existing literature, where tertiary students perceived teachers’ active listening, flexibility, and understanding of students’ circumstances to be key factors in students feeling less stress and anxiety and more regard for their teachers (Okonofua et al., 2016; Bockmier-Sommers et al., 2017; Aldrup et al., 2020; Ross et al., 2023).

Chemistry students do not expect to perceive empathy from their lecturers or course coordinators

Twelve participants reported that they did not perceive their interactions with course coordinators to be empathetic. In the context of the institution where this study was conducted, course coordinators occupy as a largely administrative role. As a result, participants explained that they “don’t really get to have a private interaction” with their course coordinators (Participant #1), and any minimal experiences with them was “very straight and to-the-point” (Participant #8). These participants did not necessarily indicate that the lack of empathy perceived from course coordinators was detrimental; for example, one participant explained that their interaction with their course coordinators could be perceived as kind, but too sparse to be empathetic:

“I don’t see much of my [course] coordinators in-person, so I think it's kindness. Empathy… I would not be able to detect it from them, because you don’t really meet them. And maybe they have [empathy], but it doesn’t show through.” (Participant #3)

Likewise, ten participants also described an absence of empathy in interactions with their lecturers. However, participants’ responses suggested indifference to this experience, with one participant explaining that lecturers were “just there to explain information” (Participant #2), prioritising the delivery of course content over interpersonal relationships with their lecturers. In general, participants perceived little empathy from lecturers, nor seemed to expect such experiences, as one participant surmises:

“I would say it's because lectures [are] almost like [a] one-sided conversation. Your lecturers talk, you sit, listen, take notes, you leave… I wouldn't say I have experienced anything from them that makes me feel like you understand they show empathy. But I didn't have really a particularly bad experience as well. I would just say like, neutral.” (Participant #12)

These experiences with lectures and course coordinators suggest that students may not expect these teaching roles to demonstrate empathetic traits or behaviours in their conduct.

Chemistry students do not perceive university infrastructure to be empathetic

When asked about their perceptions of empathy from people-based infrastructure, eleven participants did not perceive people-based infrastructure to be empathetic. Engaging with people-based infrastructure, such as the student help centre, was seen by one participant as a “frustrating” endeavour akin to a “wild goose chase” (Participant #12). Some participants reported having positive interactions, using words like “helpful” (Participant #1), “polite” (Participant #2) or “nice” (Participant #9), but did not consider these services to be empathetic. Rather, participants only viewed and sought out such services “for things that didn’t really need empathy” (Participant #3); one participant explained:

“There's no real empathy to anything, because it's like a transaction …in the context of [university], I go for a service that the [university] operates and runs, and the person is providing that service, and that's it.” (Participant #5)

Similarly, all thirteen participants did not perceive technology-based infrastructure as empathetic. Only two participants described technology-based infrastructure (such as the online enrolment platform and digital learning management systems) as “useful” (Participant #5) and “easy to navigate” (Participant #6) rather than empathetic experiences. However, most regarded technology-based infrastructure as devoid of empathy, describing these services as “cold” (Participant #1), “mechanical” (Participant #3), and “clinical” (Participant #7). One participant particularly lamented that it was the “hardest part of first year”, exclaiming:

“… working out how to use that online subject selecting thing… it was really stressful, and I felt like there was definitely a lack of empathy in that department, because I felt like they could make it simpler, it was so unnecessarily complicated.” (Participant #9)

While students’ perceptions of university infrastructure has not been well-explored in past research, these findings align with literature pertaining to the importance of empathetic design (Tracey and Baaki, 2022) as well as “service quality” empathy, which encourages greater focus on students’ demands for individualised and professionalised attention in the education service experience (Tan et al., 2019).

Suggestions to improve empathy shown towards chemistry students

When asked, “how do you think empathy could be best shown to you?” common suggestions that emerged from participants included: improving teacher communication; implementing empathetic course design and delivery; showing more leniency towards students; and enhancing use and access to university infrastructure.

Improving teacher communication. Six participants emphasised the importance for teachers to sustain timely, proactive communication, in-person or via email. As part of improving communication, participants expressed the need for teachers to employ more active listening, an empathic behaviour also desired by other tertiary students in existing literature (Ross et al., 2023). While listening to individual students, participants wanted teachers to acknowledge students’ collective concerns; one participant suggested that teachers could act on students’ feedback” to ensure that they were “able to understand the content that's being delivered to them” (Participant #10). Another participant commented that teachers needed to be “conscious of the situations that [the students are] in” (Participant #7), maintaining a keen awareness of students’ emotional and academic engagement in classes and with course components. This participant summarised: “it's thinking, ‘what do my students want to hear right now? How can I present this information so that they are most engaged?’” (Participant #7).

Implementing empathetic course design and delivery. Two participants suggested that their first-year chemistry courses did not feel empathetic; the way in which a course is conveyed would affect students’ perception of empathy from lecturers as the main deliverer of course content, and existing evidence shows that teacher empathy can be influenced by course design and delivery (Sosa, 2019). These participants described how course components were “scattered all over the place” (Participant #7), so much that it felt like there was “very little room for error” (Participant #10). One participant particularly explained that the setup of the course didn’t feel “catered to the life of [university] students, where people are working and have other things going on in their life.” (Participant #7). Many studies have explored the changing population and increased responsibilities of current tertiary education students; for example, today's students must balance university study with work, family and/or caring commitments, co-curricular activities, and personal activities, all of which compete for students’ limited time (Remenick and and Bergman, 2021; Valtonen et al., 2021; Perna, 2023). As such, teachers must consider these often-hidden responsibilities as part of implementing empathy in both teaching practice and course design (Meyers et al., 2019).

Showing more leniency towards students. In relation to the previous suggestions of teacher communication and empathetic course design, three participants suggested that their teachers could also show more leniency, particularly in relation to assessment deadlines and compulsory class attendance. One participant lamented how “rigid” their teachers were about tutorial absences, but explained that “sometimes, it's just that you’re tired, you’re exhausted from everything.” (Participant #4). Leniency from teachers was particularly appreciated for extraneous circumstances, with another participant citing public transport delays or strikes impacting their ability to attend class (Participant #6). However, these participants acknowledged the limits of teacher leniency; while “a little bit of leniency would be great” (Participant #7), participants understood that “the university has its own policy, and they can’t just change the deadline or just be lenient on me” (Participant #12).

Enhancing use and access to infrastructure. Four participants expressed desire to enhance the use and access of people- and technology-based infrastructure. These participants raised long wait times as the main obstacle in accessing people-based infrastructure, resulting in an experience that was not “empathetic of students’ time” (Participant #6), and suggested the university provide more available avenues for access, particularly during periods of the year when high numbers of student enquiries were expected.

Regarding technology-based infrastructure, participants also expressed frustration when trying to navigate the university's online timetabling services, explaining that the process of enrolment felt “detached” and “not really catered to the overwhelmed, not-really-know-what-you’re-doing first-year students” (Participant #7). Another participant desired more faculty-specific advisors that could help with timetabling of core courses in specific degree programs (Participant #9).

Discussion

The contextual nature of empathetic expectations and experiences

The varying empathetic experiences between chemistry students and different university teaching roles requires a broader discussion on empathy as a phenomenon deeply reliant on context and lived experience (Zaki, 2014; Cuff et al., 2016; Niedtfeld, 2017; Clark et al., 2019; Hall and Schwartz, 2019; Read, 2019). Participants’ responses indicated that their perceptions and expectations of empathy shown from different teaching roles varied depending on additional factors, namely learning environment and perception of shared experiences. Participants considered that it would be harder for lecturers “to show empathy when [they are] in front of a big lecture theatre with lots of students” (Participant #3) compared to attending a tutorial in a small classroom, and that the large lecture hall space does not allow “too much interaction one-to-one” (Participant #4). However, in smaller classroom sizes, one participant remarked:

“There's a lot less people, it's more personal, and weirdly enough, I feel it's okay to be quote unquote ‘vulnerable’ with being wrong or being myself… I feel like I’m able to emotionally connect with the people around me in those tutorials and [laboratories] and with the actual tutor or demonstrator much more than a lecturer.” (Participant #5).

In contrast to large in-person lectures, the smaller number of students in laboratory classes and tutorials naturally creates a more intimate learning environment that encourages more personal relationships to form with their peers and tutors and demonstrators. These responses align with existing research exploring how university contexts, learning environments, and class size can affect how teachers interact with students (Wang and Calvano, 2022), which in turn, impact students’ perception of teacher empathy.

Moreover, participant responses also reinforced the impact of shared experiences and perceived similarity affecting students’ perceptions of empathy. Existing research has revealed evidence of empathy bias towards those who are perceived as more socially close compared to distant others, and the capacity for empathy is often contingent on defined hierarchical group boundaries (Hudson et al., 2019). Notably, five participants in this study explicitly described age or seniority of a teacher impacting the teachers’ relatability, which was typically higher if the teacher was younger or earlier in their career (e.g. casual staff role compared to senior professor). Subsequently, this affected how empathetic those teachers were perceived; this notion suggests a vital impact of hierarchy and social closeness affecting students’ perception of empathy (Fowler et al., 2021). For example, in this study participants remarked that their lecturers were “always friendly and supportive” but felt “intimidating because of their position” (Participant #8), and that it was difficult to approach lecturers casually because “they don't invite you to that sort of discussion” (Participant #5). In contrast, participants perceived their tutors and laboratory demonstrators to be much easier to talk to as “they just talk to you as if they’re a student as well” (Participant #10). One participant explained: “I'm not going to talk incredibly professionally to someone who's my age in a casual tutorial or lecture setting than I will to an actual lecturer or a course coordinator.” (Participant #5). The participants’ responses regarding shared characteristics or experiences reveal the underlying effect of other factors like reliability and social closeness that may impact how students perceive empathy at university (Batson et al., 2005; Hudson et al., 2019).

Overall, participant responses suggest additional complex factors like learning environment, relatability, and social closeness influence students’ perception of empathy from different teaching roles; these factors should be considered when discussing the use of teacher empathy in the classroom. Relatability and social hierarchy remain underlying aspects of empathy that can influence students’ perception of empathy within tertiary education settings (Batson et al., 2005; Hudson et al., 2019; Fowler et al., 2021). Spatial context should also be considered; while lecturers and large classes are unlikely to change without significant institutional efforts, teachers should be aware of how students feel and interact differently with teachers and students in varying learning environments (Maringe and Sing, 2014). These differences must be considered when deploying teacher empathy, particularly in lecturer roles.

Teacher empathy and students’ concerns

It is important to acknowledge that balancing students’ concerns with teaching requirements and institutional policies is a complex and nuanced task for educators in any education context. The participants’ suggestions for high quality and frequent communication, empathic course design, and more teacher leniency cannot (nor should not) all be actioned to appease students’ negative experiences or to appear as a more empathetic teacher. This is especially true if extending assessment dates, reducing key assessment components, or diminishing students’ workload risks sacrificing quality of learning and undermining academic integrity, for the sole purpose of alleviating immediate student distress (Sinclair et al., 2017). As discussed in the introduction and noted by Meyers et al. (2019), such actions would be considered sympathetic rather than empathetic. These actions could be perceived as pity-based responses where no attempt to understand or resonate with the student's emotional experience has been made.

However, this does not mean that students’ suggestions should be outright dismissed. Meyers et al. (2019) makes the recommendation for empathetic actions and behaviour to be embedded within course or institution policies where possible, pre-emptively anticipating where students would likely require additional empathetic support. In the case of teacher leniency, this means ensuring adequate accommodation of students’ social and personal circumstances (Meyers et al., 2019; Sosa, 2019). However, it does not mean that teachers should never penalise students for missing course requirements or late assignment submissions. Instead, meeting these requirements and submission deadlines should be considered a learned skill, especially for introductory chemistry courses where students are navigating the tertiary education context for the first time (Leong et al., 2021). Other alternative course policies, such as having an allowed number of unexplained absences (Wormeli, 2011), 48-hour assignment extension applications (Meyers et al., 2019), and retake exams (Nilson, 2023) are other ways that teachers can show empathy and leniency to students through course design and structure, without requiring radical transformation of existing teaching practice or conflict with institutional policies. Finally, empathetic traits and behaviours, as well as relationship-building actions such as learning students’ names and asking questions can, also contribute meaningfully to students’ perception of teacher empathy (Ross et al., 2023).

Conclusion

This study investigated undergraduate chemistry students’ understandings and perceptions of empathy with regard to their lived experience at university. Abductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews from thirteen students enrolled in first-year chemistry courses at an Australian tertiary institution revealed that students understood the phenomena of empathy predominantly as cognitive and behavioural processes. Participants reported perceiving different university teaching roles with varying empathy levels – tutors and laboratory demonstrators were perceived to be higher in empathy compared to lecturers and course coordinators. Tutors and laboratory demonstrators displayed empathic actions and behaviours, such as active listening, flexibility, and acknowledging and addressing students’ concerns. As a result, participants reported feeling less stress and anxiety, especially in their chemistry tutorials and laboratory classes, and held their teachers to higher regard. Factors such as context and lived experience also impacted participants’ perceptions of empathy. In addition, university infrastructure, both people- and technology-based, were not perceived to be empathetic. Participants also suggested specific ways to improve how empathy could be better shown to students; these suggestions include improving teacher communication, designing empathetic courses, increasing leniency shown to students, and improving ease of use for university infrastructure.

Overall, these findings highlight the value of chemistry students’ perception of teacher empathy in the broader discussion of the role of teacher empathy in the tertiary classroom. Tertiary chemistry educators should not overlook the importance of teacher empathy as key component in delivering quality education, enhancing students’ sense of belonging, and strengthening the relationship between students and teachers within tertiary chemistry education settings.

Limitations

Firstly, we acknowledge that this research has been conducted at a single Australian university with a singular cohort of first-year undergraduate chemistry students, thus these results are not generalisable to other institutions. Convenience sampling limited the sample population to students enrolled in first-year chemistry courses. As a result, the findings do not provide insight to other university faculties. In addition, the sample size meant that differences in recorded demographics, such as intended major, academic achievement, or domestic/international student status, could not be effectively analysed.

Secondly, we acknowledge that the semi-structured interview format meant that not all participants received the same delivery of questions and responses may be subject to interviewer bias. The interviews did not try to attain statistically significant conclusions, rather were conducted to attain common experiences of empathy to inform further in-depth research into students’ perceptions of empathy within tertiary education settings.

Implications for research

The findings from this study offer multiple avenues of research, the first of which is to investigate chemistry teachers’ perception of empathy at university. While Aldrup et al. (2020) express concern over the validity of quantitative self-report measures, qualitative data collection could help to obtain deeper and broader insight into teachers’ understanding, perception, and deployment of teacher empathy towards their students. This could also help discern the limits of effective teacher empathy in practice.

Future research could extend the scope to investigate empathy perceptions held by students in different faculties, year groups, and institutions, allowing comparative analysis to determine how perceptions of empathy are affected by discipline or change over time. Another approach could consider using a longitudinal study approach, evaluating chemistry students’ changing experiences of empathy over semesters or degree duration. These changes to scope would further help to identify student demographics whose perceived experience of empathy may be lacking, while also affirming the findings from this study. Additionally, it is also important to examine the appropriate deployment of empathy in various tertiary education settings, a notion which has previously been acknowledged by scholars (Garrett and Greenwalt, 2010; Zhou, 2022).

Finally, and at an institutional-level, universities should seek to deploy more empathy towards students via its people- and technology-based infrastructure, and future research could investigate how this could be done effectively to improve students’ whole experience at university. This is especially critical for technology-based infrastructure, where human-to-human contact is typically absent.

Author contributions

SGW and RP conceptualised the study. SGW, RP and SHK supervised the project. LB collected the data. AZC and LB analysed the data. All authors discussed and interpreted study results. AZC and LB prepared the original draft manuscript. AZC, SHK and SGW reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors read, reviewed, and approved the final manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of the current study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

The supplementary information (SI) includes the interview protocol and codebook used in the study. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d5rp00284b.

Acknowledgements

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The authors thank all the participants in this study.

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