Exploring Connections between Computer Programming and Empathy

Computer programming is an emerging skill for the 21st-century citizens worldwide. Coding and educational robotics are part of several educational curricula. However, even though people's personal attributes and culture can have an impact on their perceptions of technology usability, socio-emotional aspects of programming are often neglected. Notably, empathy is an important element for social interactions among humans and previous research has shown signs of possible connections with programmers' coding experiences. As a result, this pilot study aims to explore potential correlations between Greek adults' level of empathy and their perceptions of ease of use of programming. For this purpose, an online questionnaire has been applied for data collection to 104 participants who had programming experiences in the past. According to the results, programmers' empathy is associated with perceived ease of use of object-oriented programming and educational robotics, but not with educational coding games. These findings can contribute further to our understanding of the interactions between users and technology in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Robot Interaction, and Didactics of Informatics.