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Determining If Classroom Pets As Part Of An Empathy-Based Intervention Affect Public Elementary School Students’ Empathy, Randa Dunlap

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine if consistent exposure to classroom pets in public elementary school classrooms affected children’s empathy. The sample included 44 students (females = 22; males = 22; mean age = 8.3 years) from four third-grade classrooms. A pre-test, post-test design was used to measure students’ empathy levels, and percentage changes in empathy scores were recorded for all groups. The sample was a convenience sample, and random assignment to treatment groups was not possible. Treatment included using classroom pet fish along with empathy-based lessons. Of the four participating classrooms, one classroom was the …