Can heightened aesthetic sensitivity in music promote empathy?-A pre- and post-test multilevel linear model of an 8-week music aesthetic education course intervention.

Introduction: Aesthetic education is expected to support non-cognitive development in higher education, but whether music aesthetic education can improve empathy and whether aesthetic sensitivity (AS) mediates this effect remain unclear. Methods: We conducted an 8-week whole-class quasi-experiment with 208 undergraduates from two intact classes at two Chinese universities. AS and empathy were measured before (T0) and after (T1) the intervention. Given class nesting, primary analyses used multilevel linear modeling, with ANCOVA and inverse probability weighting as robustness checks. Within the intervention class, we also tested whether changes in AS mediated empathy gains. Results: Within the experimental class, pre-post empathy gains were associated with gains in AS, in a pattern consistent with an indirect pathway through AS. Empathy also increased significantly within the intervention class, while between-class post-test differences were positive but not uniformly significant. Multilevel models showed that AS was positively associated with empathy. Mediation analyses indicated that increases in AS statistically accounted for part of the observed empathy gains. Discussion: These findings suggest that curriculum-based music aesthetic education may support empathy development in higher education and that heightened AS may be one mechanism linking the intervention to empathy outcomes. Given the quasi-experimental design, the small number of clusters, and the self-report measures, stronger designs and larger samples are needed to confirm causal effects.