The role of empathy between functional competence diversity and competence acquisition: a case study of interdisciplinary teams

This study was intended to verify the relationships among team functional competence diversity, empathy, and competence acquisition and placed more focus on team learning rather than on individual lecturing. Although functional competence diversity involved heterogeneous experts to brainstorm the development of innovative curricula, the teamwork process incurred conflicts. With the purpose of overcoming these difficulties, cultivating greater empathy in the participants helped them become more thoughtful and reduced conflicts during teamwork. We adopt purposive sampling in this study. Three hundred questionnaires were sent out, and 108 valid responses were obtained. Initially, we proved that the more participants with heterogeneous competencies there are in functional competence diversity teams, the easier it will be for them to acquire heterogeneous competencies. Second, we also found that the more teachers engage in functional competence diversity teams, the greater empathy they must have in order to reach an agreement efficiently. Third, the greater the empathy participants have, the easier it will be for them to acquire heterogeneous competencies. Finally, we verified that empathy has a mediating effect between functional competence diversity and competence acquisition in interdisciplinary teams. This study suggests that when team members have greater empathy competence, it reduces arguments, helps polish interpersonal skills, and facilitates tight cooperation that leads to the acquisition of heterogeneous knowledge and the development of systematic curricula.