Abstract:

In the field of psychology, the problem of empathy is discussed as a specific way and form of social perception, but also as an ability, process, and personal condition. The empathy is now understood as an element of emotional and new social intelligence. It is expressed both as a skill and an attitude to understand the feelings of others, take their position and respect the different point of view, and display altruistic behavior arising from one's cognitive experience. In the field of education, the empathy is often discussed as a necessary part of problem solving, resp. as an important construct directly related to the non-standartness as an element of creativity. Therefore the empathy is considered as a valuable part of teachers’ professional profile. The aim of this study is to establish the relationship between the bulgarian primary teacher's empathy and its expression in his professional activity. It is based on the assumption that teachers have a high level of empathy, understood as emotional sensitivity to students' problems, but they fail to use empathy in teaching to achieve educational goals. In the study empathy is discussed as a part of teachers' professional skills and attitudes to apply design thinking approaches in teaching process and is named with the concept "professional empathy". The research is realized in two parts with two-component methodology and covers 280 primary teachers. In the first part of the study, respondents have been studied with the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale - BEES, developed by A. Mehbian and modified by N. Epstein (Mehbian & Epstein, 1972). The scale contains 25 closed-type statements – both direct and reversible. Statements are evaluated on a 4-degree Likert scale, where 4 is completely agree and 1 - completely disagree. In the second part of the study is the author's scale used to determine the professional empathy of the teacher in the educational activity. The scale contains 25 statements – both direct and reversible. The statements are also evaluated on a 4-degree Likert scale, where 1- completely agree and 1 - completely disagree. The results are analyzed in three stages: Evaluation of the Scales internal consistency; Descriptive Statistic and Correlation Analyses.

Keywords:

Empathy, professional empathy, teaching profession.