2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

To date, there has been a growing need to foster engineering students’ empathy in addition to their technical competence. However, traditional engineering curricula offer limited opportunities for students to engage with human-centered aspects of problem solving, particularly at Primary Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs). This study explored the integration of design thinking into an undergraduate robotics course at a PUI to develop engineering students’ empathy. A convergent mixed methods design was employed, with quantitative and qualitative data collected to examine the impact of design thinking activities on engineering students’ development of empathy. Quantitative results indicated a statistically significant increase in students’ empathy following the intervention, while qualitative findings further suggested that students developed greater awareness of stakeholder perspectives and a deeper appreciation for the ethical and societal implications of engineering design in a human-centered perspective. These findings demonstrated that embedding design thinking into technology-focused engineering curriculum showed benefits of developing students’ empathy. Practical implications for engineering educators seeking to promote human-centered and socially responsible engineering practice are offered.