Question
Asked 28th Mar, 2022

Can anyone suggest a questionnaire or scale to measure empathy in the domain of Software Engineering?

We are trying to measure empathy in the Software Engineering domain and based on our investigation most of the available scales are designed for and used in psychology or medical domains. It would be very helpful if you can share any empathy scale which is developed for or which is used in software engineering domain.
I am looking for a scale which is developed specifically for software engineering domain or which has been used previously in software engineering domain or a scale which assess intergroup empathy.

Most recent answer

Hashini Gunatilake
Monash University (Australia)
Thank you so much Len Leonid Mizrah :)

All Answers (5)

Qamar Ul Islam
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Hashini Gunatilake The Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue) is a 20-item questionnaire that parents fill out to indicate their child's level of empathy (between 1 and 6 years old) during the previous two months on a three-point scale. All 20 things can be used to determine the overall score.
1 Recommendation
Hashini Gunatilake
Monash University (Australia)
Thank you so much Qamar Ul Islam But I am looking for a scale which is developed specifically for software engineering domain or which has been used previously in software engineering domain or a scale which assess intergroup empathy.
Hashini Gunatilake
Monash University (Australia)
Thank you so much Len Leonid Mizrah :)

Similar questions and discussions

Under what specific circumstances, caffeine addiction can escalate and worsen, posing greater challenges to those affected.
Discussion
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  • Ranjit SinghaRanjit Singha
Caffeine addiction can escalate and worsen under various specific circumstances, such as:
  1. Increased Tolerance: Regular and excessive caffeine consumption can lead to a higher tolerance, prompting individuals to consume even more significant amounts to achieve the desired effects. This can accelerate addiction.
  2. Withdrawal Symptoms: When a person tries to reduce or quit caffeine intake, they may experience withdrawal symptoms like headaches, fatigue, irritability, and difficulty concentrating. These discomforts can make it harder to break the addiction cycle.
  3. Stress and Anxiety: People facing high stress or anxiety levels might turn to caffeine as a coping mechanism. However, this can create a reliance on caffeine to manage emotions, exacerbating addiction.
  4. Unhealthy Sleep Habits: Using caffeine to compensate for poor sleep patterns can create a vicious cycle. Caffeine disrupts sleep, leading to fatigue the next day, and the individual may rely on more caffeine to stay awake, further disrupting their sleep.
  5. Social and Peer Pressure: Social settings where caffeine consumption is prevalent, or pressure from peers to consume caffeinated beverages, can lead to increased and chronic use.
  6. Underlying Mental Health Issues: Individuals with anxiety disorders, depression, or other mental health conditions might self-medicate with caffeine, leading to an escalation of consumption and potential addiction.
  7. Accessibility and Availability: Easy access to caffeinated products like energy drinks, coffee, or caffeinated snacks can make it convenient to consume higher quantities regularly, contributing to addiction.
  8. Lack of Awareness: Some people might not recognize the signs of caffeine addiction or underestimate its impact on their overall well-being, leading to continued use and worsening of the habit.
  9. Genetic Predisposition: Certain individuals might have a genetic predisposition that makes them more susceptible to developing a caffeine addiction.
  10. Dependency for Performance: Individuals may rely on caffeine to enhance their performance in specific high-pressure environments such as workplaces or academic settings, leading to a habit-forming pattern.
Addressing these specific circumstances and seeking support through professional help or behavioural changes can be vital in managing and overcoming caffeine addiction effectively.
Caffeine addiction can escalate and pose more significant challenges to those affected, particularly in the following medical circumstances:
  1. Cardiovascular Conditions: Individuals with pre-existing heart conditions, hypertension (high blood pressure), or arrhythmias may experience exacerbated symptoms due to the stimulant effects of caffeine, which can lead to potential complications.
  2. Gastrointestinal Disorders: Caffeine can irritate the gastrointestinal tract, causing or worsening conditions like acid reflux, gastritis, or peptic ulcers, leading to discomfort and health issues.
  3. Mental Health Disorders: Patients with anxiety disorders, panic disorder, or bipolar disorder may be more susceptible to the anxiety-inducing effects of caffeine, leading to increased agitation and potential worsening of their mental health condition.
  4. Sleep Disorders: Individuals with insomnia or other sleep disorders may find that caffeine consumption disrupts their sleep patterns further, worsening their sleep issues and creating a cycle of dependency.
  5. Pregnancy: Pregnant women are often advised to limit caffeine intake as excessive consumption may increase the risk of complications during pregnancy, affect fetal development, and lead to issues during childbirth.
  6. Medication Interactions: Caffeine can interact with certain medications, reducing their effectiveness or increasing side effects. For example, it may interfere with some antidepressants or blood pressure medications.
  7. Substance Use Disorders: Those struggling with other substance use disorders may be more susceptible to developing caffeine addiction as they may use it as a substitute or additional stimulant.
  8. Age-Related Concerns: Older adults may experience increased sensitivity to caffeine, potentially leading to adverse effects on their cardiovascular system, anxiety levels, or sleep patterns.
  9. Renal Disorders: Caffeine consumption can impact kidney function and exacerbate certain renal disorders, such as kidney stones or kidney disease.
  10. Underlying Health Issues: Individuals with certain medical conditions, such as chronic pain, fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue syndrome, might rely on caffeine to manage their symptoms, leading to potential dependency and worsening of their conditions.
In these medical circumstances, individuals must be mindful of their caffeine intake and consult with healthcare professionals to understand how caffeine might interact with their specific health conditions. Reducing or eliminating caffeine consumption may sometimes be recommended to mitigate potential risks and complications.
Caffeine, being a central nervous system stimulant, can have several effects on the brain:
  1. Increased Alertness and Focus: Caffeine blocks adenosine receptors in the brain, reducing fatigue and drowsiness. As a result, individuals may experience increased alertness and improved concentration.
  2. Enhanced Cognitive Function: Some studies suggest that caffeine can temporarily improve cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and reaction time.
  3. Mood Enhancement: Caffeine may promote the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, leading to a temporary mood lift and a sense of well-being.
  4. Brain Blood Flow: Caffeine can increase cerebral blood flow, potentially contributing to cognitive-enhancing effects.
  5. Withdrawal Effects: Regular caffeine consumption can lead to dependence, and when individuals suddenly reduce or stop their intake, they may experience withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, irritability, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating.
  6. Sleep Disturbances: Caffeine can disrupt sleep patterns by interfering with the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, leading to difficulties falling asleep or staying asleep.
  7. Anxiety and Jitters: Higher doses of caffeine can induce feelings of anxiety, nervousness, and restlessness, especially in individuals who are sensitive to its effects.
  8. Increased Heart Rate and Blood Pressure: Caffeine can cause a short-term increase in heart rate and blood pressure due to its stimulant properties.
  9. Addiction and Tolerance: With regular use, some individuals may develop tolerance to caffeine, requiring higher doses to achieve the same effects, which can lead to addiction and dependency.
  10. Withdrawal Reversal: In cases of severe caffeine addiction, withdrawal can lead to a "rebound" effect where some symptoms, like fatigue, worsen temporarily.
It's important to note that individual responses to caffeine can vary widely. Some people may be more sensitive to its effects, while others may tolerate higher doses with fewer side effects. Additionally, the long-term effects of caffeine on the brain are a topic of ongoing research, and more studies are needed to fully understand its impact on cognitive function and overall brain health. As with any substance, moderation and awareness of personal tolerance levels are essential for responsible caffeine consumption. In DSM-5, caffeine-related disorders are grouped under "Caffeine-Related Disorders" in the section "Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders." These disorders include "Caffeine Intoxication," "Caffeine Withdrawal," "Other Caffeine-Induced Disorders," and "Unspecified Caffeine-Related Disorder." It's important to note that caffeine use disorder is not classified as a formal diagnosis in DSM-5.
In ICD-10, caffeine-related disorders are found in the chapter "Mental and Behavioral Disorders" under the category "Mental and Behavioral Disorders due to Psychoactive Substance Use." The specific code for caffeine-related disorders is F15.8. This category includes caffeine-related mental and behavioural disorders due to caffeine use, but, like DSM-5, it doesn't specify caffeine use disorder as a separate diagnosis.
Caffeine addiction treatment typically involves a combination of behavioural interventions, support, and, in severe cases, medical assistance. Here are some common approaches used to address caffeine addiction:
  1. Gradual Reduction of Caffeine Intake: Abruptly quitting caffeine can lead to withdrawal symptoms, so a gradual reduction in consumption is often recommended. Tapering off caffeine over weeks allows the body to adjust more smoothly.
  2. Behavioural Therapy: Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or counselling can be beneficial in helping individuals understand their caffeine use patterns, identify triggers, and develop coping strategies to manage cravings and reduce consumption.
  3. Support Groups: Joining support groups or seeking help from a therapist specialising in addiction can provide encouragement, motivation, and a sense of community during recovery.
  4. Lifestyle Changes: Encouraging healthy lifestyle habits, such as regular exercise, sufficient sleep, and stress management, can reduce the reliance on caffeine for energy and focus.
  5. Substitution Strategies: Replacing caffeinated beverages with non-caffeinated alternatives, such as herbal teas or decaffeinated coffee, can help individuals gradually transition away from their dependency on caffeine.
  6. Identifying Triggers: Understanding the situations or emotions that lead to increased caffeine consumption can help individuals develop alternative coping mechanisms or strategies to avoid these triggers.
  7. Medical Supervision: In severe cases, medical supervision may be necessary to address withdrawal symptoms and manage any underlying health conditions affected by caffeine addiction.
  8. Medication: While not commonly used, certain medications may be prescribed to manage withdrawal symptoms or other related issues in specific cases.
  9. Education and Awareness: Providing education about the effects of caffeine on the body and the risks associated with excessive consumption can empower individuals to make informed choices.
  10. Self-Monitoring: Keeping a journal to track caffeine intake, mood changes, and withdrawal symptoms can help individuals better understand their patterns and progress during the recovery process.
It's important to note that individual experiences with caffeine addiction may vary, and treatment approaches should be tailored to each person's specific needs and circumstances. For those struggling with caffeine addiction, seeking professional help from healthcare providers, addiction specialists, or mental health professionals can be crucial in developing an effective and personalized treatment plan.
Presentation and request for papers
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  • Arcione Ferreira ViagiArcione Ferreira Viagi
how can you help me?
About the Journal
The Revista de Ciências Exatas (RCE) or Jounal of Exact Sciences in an exclusively electronic version, is a biannual publication of the stricto and lato sensu PostGraduate Program in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Taubaté (SP). It was created by means of meeting the demand for scientific production from Brazilian and international universities, aiming to encourage academic debate, dissemination, discussion, criticism and reference on the evolution and dynamics of Exact Sciences in its different dimensions within the scope of public activities. or private, focusing on Social, Environmental and Economic aspects for sustainable development.
RCE is a pluralist journal and publishes works that present original contributions, theoretical or empirical, related to the field of Exact Sciences to a postgraduate program in Engineering, values ​​the development of interdisciplinary dialogue, opening spaces for contributions from other areas (health, engineering, architecture, psychology, history, environmental sciences) that interface with the journal's central project.
It is available for national and international collaborators and has a varied editorial board, distributed by several institutions and regions of Brazil and several other countries.
The RCE includes thematic dossiers, scientific and theoretical-methodological updating paper, reviews, research notes, case studies, interviews and special texts (guest authors, transcription of lectures, debates, and, eventually, papers presented at congresses that are of interest academic and social), when recommended by groups of researchers and approved by the Editorial Board. Unpublished contributions in Portuguese, English and Spanish are accepted for evaluation. The publication of works is conditioned to the opinions of members of the Editorial and Advisory Boards, guaranteeing the anonymity of the authors and of the reviewers throughout the evaluation process.
RCE Areas of Interest:
· Sustainable development
o Technological innovation projects
· Industrial and Residential Automation
o the Artificial Intelligence
o the Internet of Things (IoT)
· Production and Quality Management
o Industry 4.0
o Business Management Systems (ERP)
o Lean Production (Lean Manufacturing)
o Supply Channels (Supply Chain)
o the six sigma
o the oil and gas
It is noteworthy that the listed themes must be articulated with the debate on Production Management, an area of ​​knowledge with interfaces between engineering and business administration, and that contributes to interdisciplinary solutions for improving processes and optimizing the resources used in the production process.
Peer Review Process
RCE adopts the Double-Blind Review system. All submitted paper will be reviewed by the editor, executive editor, members of the editorial board, scientific board or deputy editors to verify that the content of the article is appropriate for the journal and that the manuscript was prepared in accordance with the instructions for authors. The editor may reject the article if it detects: errors related to the instructions; inappropriate wording; or if, the work does not contain sufficient scientific or technological merit. The evaluation is recorded in the "Form - first phase of evaluation. The form is composed of eight criteria, namely:
· adherence to the thematic line of the journal
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· clarity of the abstract.
· structure of the article.
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· scientific contribution of the article.
· coherence, cohesion, adequate use of cultural norms.
· use of international bibliographic references.
For each criterion a score of 1 to 3 points is assigned (Fully meets - 3 points; Partially meets - 2 points; Does not meet - 1 point). Minimum score 15 points.
For plagiarism verification, which is carried out in the first evaluation phase, we use the the software Copy Spider.
The paper approved in the first evaluation phase (Minimum score 15 points) will be sent by the executive editor to two ad hoc reviewers, specialists in the theme of the proposed article. The reviewers will receive the manuscript, without any identification of the authors, in addition to the evaluation form. All reviewers, when invited to do so, received the journal's evaluation guidelines.
At no stage of the process will the reviewers know the identity of the authors, as well as the authors will not know the identity of the reviewers.
The papers sent to the journal will be analyzed by the Editorial Board according to their specialty and will be evaluated by ad hoc reviewers according to the following criteria:
• contribution and up-to-date technical-scientific content.
• scientific relevance.
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• clarity and quality of writing.
• adequacy to the journal's publication standards.
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Frequency: half-yearly (Jan-Jul / Aug-Dec)
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Is Software Engineering an Art, Science, and/or Engineering? What do you think?
Question
3 answers
  • Mohamed FayadMohamed Fayad
In Yingxu Wang. "Software Engineering Foundations A Software Science Perspective" Auerbach Publications, 8 August 2007 (1444 pages)." Wang said that "Software engineering is an ideal testbed for existing theories and methodologies in disciplines mentioned above in the book, from mathematics to cognitive informatics, and from Science to sociology for two reasons:
(1) Software engineering is the latest and the most complicated engineering branch that humankind has ever experienced, and
(2) Software engineering s a transdisciplinary field with both its theoretical foundation and empirical applications inherently. An excellent book treated software engineering as a science.
In the gang of four (GoF) Book Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, et al. "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software," Addison-Wesley Professional, October 1994, and another huge number of traditional analysis and design patterns books are programming languages where they claim that Patterns are micro-architecture. Question: Where are the macro and mini architectures?
All the citations of Knuth (1974), Parnas (1998), Dijkstra (1998) & (2004) summarize the following problematic issues:
[1] Knuth indicated that software engineering (SE) is programming, and programming is an art.
[2] Parnas said that Software is a form of engineering.
[3] Dijkstra predicted the death of software engineering (SE) and named it
a. Radical Novelty
b. Miserable Science
c. Doomed Discipline
Dijkstra does not believe that SE is not Art, Science, or Engineering.
[4] Wang emphasizes that SE is a science.
[5] GoF and other traditional patterns are programming and have nothing to do with art, Science, and engineering.
During the discussion of these problematic issues with many academics and professionals and no good answers
What are the few causes of these problematic issues (will be addressed and criticized in different publications with examples):
(I) Most people working in computing (academics and partitioners) are software engineers, such as programmers, researchers, managers, and top Faculty, and this is the case with any engineering work.
(II) The existing programs at universities, training companies, Gurus, and top authors need to learn about proper software engineering. They inherited this from their previous education and training.
(III) In reality, most people treat software engineering as programming in the Colleges of Engineering, Science, and Business, and they are different.
(IV) The demand for SE positions is very high and will continue to be high. However, many organizations' hiring committees at universities and human recourses need to learn the proper qualifications for such positions. Unfortunately, discrimination influenced the hiring committees and Human Resources during the entire career experience. For example, the hiring process on hiring committees, once they kicked, prevented a seat in hiring and promotion committees.
(V) The existing software engineering books are all the same, and we cannot classify them as proper forms of Art, Science, and Engineering. Unfortunately, many software engineering instructors consider them all the same and do not offer anything related to software engineering. Therefore, they are flawed and have reductase art, Science, and engineering knowledge.
VI. All the existing research is done, and going on is a waste of money, time, and energy – Billions of $s. we need to have new directions and research agenda for accurate Software Engineering.
VII. The programmers think they are software engineers, which indicates that software engineering is programmers by the majority. According to proper software engineering, it is less than 5% of the software development lifecycle if done correctly. These answer the questions related to the cancelations of many systems, maintenance nightmare, disappearance, and short life spans of many existing software companies, failure of 98% of startups, and legacy systems (Billions of $s)
VIII. As practitioners and academics, we have been in software engineering for more than 45 years. Unfortunately, software researchers, academics, and professionals need deep knowledge of proper software engineering.
IX. The SE deals with two spaces: (1) the Problem Space and (2) the Solution Space.
(1) The problem space has three properties: (I) one problem, (II) represents the "WHAT," (III) Analysis of the functional and non-functional requirements.
(2) Solution Space has three properties: (I) Many Solutions, (II) Design, Architecture, and Coding, and (III) Represents the "HOW-TO."
The problem space only exists in some places. It is disastrous and misses the problem space in SE and leads to building software development as instance developments, leading to vast numbers of software applications per instance.
The solution space provides many solutions. However, unfortunately, this is also disastrous and misses the ultimate solution.
X. Specialized SE professors are needed at many software engineering programs in computer science, Computer Engineering, mathematics, information systems, and other colleges that need more—for example, Taken San Jose State University and all CSUs. Software Engineering Programs are extensive, with a minimal number of Faculty vs. the number of Students.
At SJSU, the Computer Engineering Department serves more than 2300 undergraduate and graduate students. It offers BS and MS degrees in computer and software engineering, and its Software Engineering Program serves more than 2000 graduate and undergraduate students. The funny thing, all the Faculty in SE are considered Software Engineering Faculty, and part-time lecturers (Who are not qualified) teach software engineering and management courses. In contrast, we believe all the systems exit in the Software section of the department to be Software Engineering courses.
XI. Existing software engineering methodologies/methods/techniques/processes have a lot of problematic issues and pitfalls that are not appropriate for SE, such as existing domain analysis, abstraction techniques, modeling, standards, functional and non-functional, design, architecture, testing, and many others
XII. We are developing instance-oriented software systems and applications based on what We call industrial objects (IOs) with the following properties: (1) Tangible, (2) Changeable, (3) Application Objects, [4] Known to most people, such as a specific book, or car, or computer, and others
The big question: Do we have ways to fix the above problematic issues and pitfalls?
YES.
Check the next Article – Old Question – Part Two.

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