EMPATHY IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES ON EMPATHY (original) (raw)

2019, INTERNATIONAL II. BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATION RESEARCH CONFERENCE

The aim of this study is to evaluate the empathy levels of university students in vocational school in terms of gender, department, class, number of siblings, working status, spending status, social media usage, sporting status and parents living together or separately. In this study, questionnaire technique was used as data collection tool. In the questionnaire, Toronto Empathy Scale developed by Spreng, Kinnon, Mar ve Levine (2009) and personal information form were used. Data were obtained from 621 university students studying at Manavgat Vocational School of Akdeniz University. In the analysis of the data, reliability analysis, factor analysis, ANOVA test and t test were used. The reliability value of the scale used in the study (Cronbach alpha = 0.66) was found to be sufficient. As a result of factor analysis, one dimension was obtained from Empathy Scale as in the original scale. As a result of t tests and ANOVA tests, among the demographic variables gender, class, sporting status and parental cohabitation were significantly related to empathy levels of the students. Besides, number of siblings, working status, social media usage and spending status were not significantly related to empathy levels of students. The fact that no such research has been found on the students of vocational high schools in the literature adds a unique value to this study. In this context, the study is aimed to contribute to the literature. However, the findings were discussed in the light of the current literature and some recommendations were made to school administrations.