Designing a Cognitive Empathy Toolkit for Dutch PRO Schools: A Participatory Approach to Enhancing Perspective-Taking in Practice-Oriented Education

Abstract

Adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) in Dutch practical education (PrO) face disproportionate challenges in social functioning, partly due to difficulties with cognitive empathy, the ability to understand others’ perspectives without necessarily sharing their emotions. Existing empathy interventions are rarely tailored to this population, are not designed for the specific context of PrO schools, and almost never developed together with students and teachers. This project addresses that gap by developing a cognitive empathy toolkit that is both theoretically grounded and shaped by its users.

The study follows a six-study, mixed-methods participatory design protocol. It combines Design Thinking, Intervention Mapping, the Behaviour Change Wheel (COM-B), and the Six-Element Framework for Child and Adolescent Empowerment into one coherent methodological approach. Across two co-design sessions, seven PrO students (aged 13–15) explored their own needs, designed concepts, translated this to a prototype, and evaluated a AI generated prototype. In parallel, educators and domain experts participated in two needs-assessment sessions and one validation workshop to articulate practical constraints, evaluate design options, and think through implementation in real classrooms. A quantitative emotion recognition task with 70 PrO students from multiple schools provided a baseline for socio-emotional skills and helped prioritise training targets.

Across studies, several robust patterns emerged. Emotion regulation consistently appeared as a prerequisite for meaningful perspective-taking, while any form of extended writing functioned as a barrier for many students. Students and staff converged on game-based, socially embedded formats, short and visually rich activities, and strong scaffolding of abstract concepts through concrete scenarios set in everyday PrO student contexts. The emotion recognition baseline showed systematic difficulty recognising mixed or ambiguous emotions, underlining the need for explicit training in these areas.

By triangulating findings across all studies, guiding design principles were formulated, emphasising emotion regulation first, tangibility, peer learning, balanced gamification, cognitive accessibility, explicit transfer to real life, and contextual flexibility. These principles informed a toolkit concept consisting of three interconnected components: a visual emotion check-in module, a classroom training application with scaffolded perspective-taking scenarios and cooperative game elements, and a flexible lesson plan that can be adapted to different school phases and group profiles. School staff assessed the concept and judged it appropriate, feasible, and potentially valuable as a low-threshold resource for practising cognitive empathy within everyday PrO practice. The project shows that participatory co-design with adolescents with MID is feasible and generative when carefully scaffolded, and offers a concrete, practice-oriented contribution to social-emotional learning in special and practical education.