“From observing empathy to understanding empathy”: A film and activity based intervention to foster emotional and cognitive empathy in primary school children

The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of an integrated, short-term intervention program based on animated films and follow-up activities designed to enhance emotional and cognitive empathy among fourth-grade elementary school students. The study sample consisted of 37 fourth-grade students from a public elementary school, with 19 students, assigned to the experimental group and 18 to the control group. A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest control group design was employed. Prior to and following the intervention, both groups completed the KA-SI Empathy Tendency Scale (child form). The six-week intervention program involved weekly exposure of the experimental group to a short, empathy-themed animated film, followed by structured activities aimed at reinforcing empathic understanding, such as drama, role-playing, storytelling, and drawing. Quantitative data analysis techniques were used to evaluate the outcomes. The findings indicated that, following the intervention, students in the experimental group demonstrated statistically significant increases in both cognitive and emotional empathy scores compared to those in the control group. Additionally, analyses based on gender revealed that female students exhibited slightly higher empathy scores than male students. Overall, the results support the effectiveness of short, media- and activity-based intervention programs reported in the existing literature and provide exploratory evidence suggesting that brief, structured interventions may serve as a functional approach for fostering empathy development within educational settings. • Media and activity-based hybrid approaches aimed at supporting empathy have been gaining increasing attention in recent years. • Students who participated in the six-week empathy program showed a significant increase in emotional and cognitive empathy levels compared to the control group. • The program's short-term and low-cost structure offers an efficient model that teachers can easily implement. • The program contributes to the cultural adaptability of media-supported empathy education.