Profiling and Cross-Sectional Evaluation of Empathy Levels of Food Science Undergraduates at Wayamba University of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The most vital and crucial ability that human being should have is empathy. This study was conducted to evaluate empathy skills of food science undergraduates of Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. Perth Empathy Scale was used as the empathy measurement tool. The study population was 501 first, second- and third-year students. PES demonstrated good internal consistency and three factor grouping was obtained for ‘general cognitive empathy’, ‘positive affective empathy’ and ‘negative affective empathy’. The mean empathy score for the study population was 61.31±10.71. There is no significant difference in the mean empathy score between female (61.66±10.68) and male (60.07±10.73) students. Mean empathy scores among three academic years also do not show a significant difference. Overall, only 17.17% of students have high empathy level. Therefore, introducing empathy-driven teaching and learning to the existing curriculum is strongly recommended.