STUDENT VALUES, ATTITUDES, AND WELL-BEING

The Influence of Workplace Learning on

Attitudes toward Animal Welfare in
Veterinary Students
Sarah Pollard-Williams n Rebecca E. Doyle n Rafael Freire
ABSTRACT
Several studies suggest that veterinary students empathy for animals declines during the years spent at university,
yet the factors responsible for this change are not well understood. This study focused on the influence of workplace learning (WPL) on veterinary students empathy for animals. WPL comprises off-campus placements and is
common to all veterinary degree programs. A survey of 150 veterinary students at Charles Sturt University was
conducted using an established animal-empathy scale. In general, our findings supported previous studies that
empathy for animals declines between the first and fifth year and is lower in male students than in female students.
Our findings indicated that specific factors relating to WPL such as pre-clinical extramural studies and clinical
placements significantly influenced the students beliefs on animal welfare. The findings presented here suggest
that closer examination of the impact of WPL within the veterinary curricula is important to understanding students
changes in empathy for animals and the development of ethical principles in veterinary education.
Key words: animal welfare, education, empathy, extramural studies, workplace learning

INTRODUCTION
Previous surveys of veterinary students have suggested
that the veterinary career path is chosen early in life because of students early experiences with animals.1,2 Veterinary students expressed that an interest, concern and
love for animals are major factors influencing their
choice of study and career.1(p.292) About a third of veterinary undergraduates chose their career path before 12
years of age, their decision influenced by exposure to
animals as children.1,2 Despite an apparently universal
interest in animals among veterinary students, research
suggests that empathy for animals, and belief in animal
sentience, declines markedly between the early years of
a veterinary science degree and the second year after
graduation.3,4 Female veterinary students show a higher
level of empathy for animals than male students,3,4 and
this gender difference is also seen in students in different
countries.5 Any decline in empathy as a result of teaching
is of concern in a profession that aims to uphold animal
welfare.6 This is of importance because empathy for
animals has been correlated with a positive approach to
animal welfare by stock handlers, with higher empathy
levels having a direct link to better animal-welfare outcomes on farms.7
This study aims to investigate the influence of workplace learning (WPL) on veterinary students empathy for
animals. WPL is the preferred term at Charles Sturt University (CSU) for off-campus placements common to all
veterinary degree programs. While WPL across many

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JVME 41(3) 8 2014 AAVMC

general disciplines has traditionally been viewed as ad hoc

and informal,8 more recent educational thinking regards it
as being structured, complex, and involving procedures
and routines tailored to specific situations.9 Similar to
other veterinary science programs, WPL at CSU has two
main phases: a pre-clinical animal-husbandry phase, which
involves learning on working farms, followed by clinical
practice in commercial veterinary practices external to the
university in later years. Research in medical education
suggests that the workplace environment and experience
are strong contributors to a decline in empathy,10,11 and
exposure of medical students to a hospital setting during
clinical education has also been linked to a decline in empathy.12 Likewise, the working environment has been
demonstrated to have adverse effects on the ability of
junior doctors to maintain a patient-centered approach.13
A comparison to medical education raises the possibility
that WPL within veterinary education may similarly have
an effect on empathy for animals. However, no research
has been conducted to investigate the link between WPL
and empathy in veterinary students.
Animal-welfare teaching within veterinary education
rose in prominence in the 1980s, with the first professor
of animal welfare appointed to a veterinary school in
1986.6 Animal-welfare education within the veterinary
curriculum is usually presented as a multi-disciplinary
course, which can include ethics, legislation, and socioeconomics.14 The structured curriculum usually provides
scientific evidence and ethical discussion on animal welfare.
However, during WPL, students are exposed to intensive

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and extensive farm practices, which may include painful

husbandry practices and the treatment of injured animals.
While our primary aim is to determine how important
these experiences are in shaping attitudes toward animals,
we are also interested in comparing how these experiences
complement, or otherwise affect, in-class animal-welfare
teaching.
CSUs veterinary science cohort is unusual in that students are selected on the basis of having a rural background, and students with extensive farm experience are
favored.15 CSU veterinary science students therefore
have considerable workplace experience on farms at the
point of entry to the program. It is unknown if this cohort
of students show a decline in empathy throughout their
program as has been reported in other cohorts, bearing
in mind that many of these students would already have
been exposed to farm practices before entry into the
program.
The aim of this study was to examine the changes in
attitude toward animals during the veterinary science
degree at CSU and identify the factors, including WPL
and undergraduate animal-welfare teaching, that affect
student attitudes toward animals and their welfare. To
meet these aims, students were surveyed using an existing
questionnaire designed to measure empathy.3 This questionnaire asks students to agree or disagree with statements on their beliefs about the sentience of animals
(e.g., I think animals can be happy) and their empathy
with animals (e.g., Seeing animals in pain upsets me).
The survey included further statements (e.g., WPL has
challenged my personal beliefs on animal welfare) that
explored the social and educational factors that shape
student attitudes.

METHODS
Participants and Procedures
Participants in this study were veterinary science students
from CSU, Wagga Wagga, Australia. Students in their
first, third, and final year of study in 2012 were involved.
The CSU Ethics in Human Research Committee approved
the study before commencement. Questionnaires were
distributed in the classroom, and completion of them was
both voluntary and anonymous.

Questionnaire
The questionnaire was divided into three parts. Part 1
was designed to obtain general background information
and some specific details relevant to animal welfare (e.g.,
age, gender, childhood residence, diet, companion-animal
ownership, and membership in animal-welfare organizations). Part 2 measured the students empathy with animals using a version of the Animal Empathy Scale.3 The
scale involves 25 statements about animals, which suggest
either empathic or non-empathic sentiments. The participants responses to these statements were presented on a
9-point scale ranging from 4 (very strongly agree) to 4
(very strongly disagree). Part 3 examined the importance
of educational factors for students beliefs using four
statements that the students responded to using the

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same 9-point scale. A full copy of the questionnaire can

be obtained by contacting the corresponding author.

Data Analysis
Reverse scoring was conducted on appropriate statements so that high scores were indicative of high levels
of empathy for animals and low scores were indicative
of low levels of empathy for animals, regardless of the
statement. Scores for empathy were summed to give an
overall score of between 100 and 100. Overall scores
showed an evenly distributed variance and normality,
and they were analyzed using an unbalanced generalized
linear model (GLM) in GenStat 14.0,a with year of study
and gender as factors with interactions (GLM and F distribution is given). Place of childhood residence, diet, and
welfare-organization membership were expected to influence empathy scores but were of secondary interest and
included as a covariate. Since the empathy scores were a
sum of 25 Likert-type items, we considered the measurement level to be sufficiently continuous to allow the use
of parametric tests.16,17
Scores for the individual items influencing beliefs were
on the scale of 4 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree)
and were not expected to be normally distributed, so they
were analyzed using non-parametric tests.18 Individual
items were first analyzed using a one-sample Wilcoxon
signed-rank test (using IBM SPSS Statistics, Version 20b)
to test whether the observed median differed significantly
from zero. That is, an observed median significantly
greater than zero indicates that participants agreed with
the statement, whereas an observed median significantly
less than zero indicates that participants disagreed with
the statement. An observed median that is not significantly different from zero indicates that participants neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement (i.e., neutral).
Following this analysis, a MannWhitney test was undertaken on each item to determine if there was a significant
difference in scores between male and female participants
(using IBM SPSS Statistics).

RESULTS
Descriptives
Surveys were completed by 61 students in year 1, 45 in
year 3, and 44 in year 5. Average ages were 19.7, 21.9,
and 23.5 years old, respectively. The majority of students
were female (range 70%78% for each surveyed year)
and had lived as a child (under 16 years of age) mostly
on farms (57%60%) or in regional towns (24%33%).
Virtually all students had owned at least one kind of
companion animal as a child, with the most common
being dogs (82%98%). Most participants diets included
meat (97%100%), and between 8% and 9% belonged to
an animal-welfare organization.

Empathy Scores
Female participants were found to have a higher empathy
score (GLM, F1,144 25.2, p < .001) than male participants
(Figure 1). In general, empathy scores were lower in students in later years of the program (GLM, F2,144 3.6,

JVME 41(3) 8 2014 AAVMC

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Figure 1: Mean e SE animal-empathy scores for male and female students in years 1, 3, and 5 of the veterinary science program.
The higher the scores, the higher the empathy with regards to animal welfare.
p .030). There was no significant interaction between
gender and year of study (gender  year interaction,
GLM, F2,144 1.2, p .300).

Social and Educational Factors Influencing

Student Beliefs in Years 1, 3, and 5
The program in general influenced male and female students attitudes toward animal welfare (Table 1). WPL
both challenged the students personal beliefs on animal
welfare and taught them about animal welfare. In contrast, academic courses on animal welfare only tended
(not significantly) to influence their views on animal welfare (p .070), suggesting that the practical component
had more influence.

DISCUSSION
The results of this survey probe specific factors that influence veterinary students attitudes toward animal welfare
and highlight some key points that pertain to curriculum
design. In support of previous findings,3 we found that,
in general, empathy levels of students in later years of
the program were lower than empathy levels of students
in the early years. Also in agreement with other findings,
female students had higher levels of empathy for animals
than male students, though it is necessary to be aware
that, as is common in other veterinary science programs,
only about 25% of our participants were male. Students
reported that both the courses and WPL influenced their
personal beliefs on animal welfare. Interestingly though,
participants stated that WPL taught them more about
animal welfare than other aspects of the program.
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JVME 41(3) 8 2014 AAVMC

Many universities include courses on animal behavior

and welfare in the first 2 years of the veterinary science
degree,19 with a recent call for these courses to cover animal-welfare science, ethics, and law.14 In other universities, such courses can have a positive influence on veterinary students attitudes toward production animals.4
In our study, however, animal-welfare teaching early in
the program appeared to only have a weak effect on attitudes toward animals (p .070). As stated earlier, CSU
selects students from rural backgrounds with considerable farm-animal experience,15 thus students who perhaps
already have a fixed level of empathy. Given the early
placement of animal-welfare courses in most programs,
the repeatedly published findings of an overall empathy
decline argue strongly that animal welfare as a subject
should be revisited in the veterinary curricula in later
years. Along with the current results, previous research
has shown that staff opinion of management practices
contributes to the attitudes of the students.20,21 It is possible
that the cause of the observed decline in empathy is multifactorial, and further studies could examine these causal
factors. Stress in veterinary students, in particular, appears
to be a growing concern for students, educators, and
practitioners.22
This is the first study investigating the effect of WPL
on veterinary students empathy and shows that WPL
had significant influence on student attitudes toward
animals. Despite the majority of CSUs students starting
with considerable farm-animal experience, students reported that WPL had a strong influence on their attitudes
toward animals. It is possible that WPL may exert a
stronger effect on students in programs that do not
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Table 1: Responses of veterinary science students to statements on how different components of their program affected
their attitudes toward animal welfare
Overall response
Mean e SE

Statement

value

Gender effects *
Mean e SE

p value

This program has provided me with sufficient information to formulate

my ideas about animal welfare.

2.0 e 0.2

.001

M 2.1 e 0.2
F 1.9 e 0.2

.800

Information learnt in animal-welfare-specific courses strongly

influenced my ideas of what constitutes good animal welfare.
WPL has challenged my personal beliefs on animal welfare.

0.5 e 0.3

.070

.200

0.6 e 0.2

.010

M 0.05 e 0.5
F 0.7 e 0.3
M 0.7 e 0.3
F 0.6 e 0.3

WPL has taught me more about animal welfare than anything else.

1.4 e 0.2

.001

M 1.2 e 0.4
F 1.4 e 0.3

.300

.800

M male; F female; WPL workplace learning

* Outcome of one-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank test
p values in bold are significant (p < .050)
Outcome from MannWhitney test

actively select for students with considerable farm-animal

experience. The effect of farm WPL in early years of the
degree is worthy of closer investigation as this form of
production-animal WPL is common to virtually all veterinary degrees that take undergraduate students and is an
important component of professional development.23
The decreasing empathy scores seen with increasing
year of study appears to be counterintuitive to veterinary
education. Physiology, anesthesia, pharmacology, and
many other components of a veterinary program are
content-laden with information on physiological pain
and stress and their management. Even with the inclusion of specific animal-welfare content in their programs,
it would appear that veterinary students undergo a hardening of attitudes that coincides with exposure to practice,
perhaps as a mechanism for coping with the distressing
events and frequent conflicts of interest that manifest in
veterinary practice.3,24 The culture of any one particular
workplace and the accepted norms within that environment (the hidden curriculum) have been well recognized as a strong influence on both medical and veterinary students and are also linked to the development of
professional attributes in individuals.25,26
WPL can be contextual and variable,27 and although
placements may have to meet criteria, for farm placements these are generally set in terms of stock numbers
and production methods. As our findings show, WPL
appears to have far-reaching influence on students attitudes toward animals and their welfare. We suggest that
students should receive appropriate support in planning,
undertaking, and interpreting their WPL experiences and
that this should be monitored in veterinary programs.
This raises the challenge of effective educational integration of experiential and class-based learning about animal
welfare to equip students with the ability to think critically about workplace experiences.
In conclusion, students of veterinary science demonstrated a progressive decline in animal-empathy scores
with respect to animal-welfare concerns, which is in line

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with published data. This is the first study that investigates the role of WPL in the veterinary curriculum, and
findings suggest that WPL has a significant contribution
to shaping empathy for animals. Closer examination of
the impact of WPL and the tracking of students attitudinal changes throughout a program will be important to
further detect factors driving this decline in empathy.

NOTES
a
b

GenStat. Version 14.0. Hemel Hempstead, UK: VSN

International.
IBM SPSS Statistics. Version 20. Armonk, NY: IBM
Corp.; released 2011.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Sarah Pollard-Williams, BSc, Vet MB, Cert Vet Ophthal, is
Lecturer in Veterinary Practice, School of Animal and Veterinary
Science, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2650
Australia. E-mail: spwilliams@csu.edu.au. Research interests
include the impact of workplace learning on veterinary students.
Rebecca E. Doyle, Bsc, PhD, is Research Fellow, Animal Welfare
Science Centre, Alice Hoy Building, University of Melbourne,
Parkville, Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia. E-mail:
rebecca.doyle@unimelb.edu.au. Becs main research areas involve
the correlation of behavior with physiological indicators of stress
and welfare in several animal species. She has worked extensively
on practical animal-welfare improvements in Australia and
overseas.
Rafael Freire, BSc, PhD, is Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and
Welfare, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, Charles Sturt
University, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2650 Australia. Rafs principle
research interest is the behavior and welfare of poultry.

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