Study repeats findings demonstrating in-person instruction improves empathic awareness: Curriculum emphasizes literary narratives,narrative reasoning,person-to person interaction,and close reading

Abstract

Despite the widely accepted importance of clinician empathy in quality healthcare, no occupational therapy-based pedagogy has consistently demonstrated the ability to improve the level of empathic awareness in students. In an effort to replicate 2020 findings that demonstrated the close reading of literary narratives improves empathic awareness in occupational therapy students (p < 0.001), the study’s curriculum and methodology were repeated in 2021 and 2022. Results demonstrated that classes taught fully in-person repeated findings (p < 0.001), while classes taught online (2021) did not (p > 0.001). Study implications include the potential of an in-person curriculum that emphasizes literary narratives to facilitate empathic awareness in occupational therapy students, and the possible limitations of online instruction to foster greater understanding of client needs.