Interdisciplinary – Page 38 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Interdisciplinary

The Promise of Free Tuition: The Case of Chile

During the last decade, different free-tuition initiatives have been discussed and implemented around the world. Although empirical research on this topic is emerging, little is known about the formation of such initiatives, and its impact on student’s access and persistence and on institutional outcomes. This study contributes to the literature about free college by analyzing the case of Chile, a country that implemented such a policy in 2016. This case study will be a valuable contribution to the international comparative discussion of free college. This study analyzes the formation of the free-tuition program in Chile through newspaper articles and policy documents. It analyzes the effect on institutions, by reviewing changes in institutional revenues and student composition. By examining these trends, we are able to evaluate whether the free-tuition program is able to diversify the student body in participating institutions and examine how these universities have adapted to this new policy. Preliminary results are presented and implications are discussed.

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Multicultural Content Areas Faculty Feel Least Confident Teaching

Faculty in Schools of Social Work has the important task of educating graduate students for future Social Work practice and/or future research in the field. There are limited studies investigating faculty’s confidence in their teaching abilities surrounding Social Work content. This study will investigate faculty’s attitudes towards content that they reported feeling the least confident teaching and whether this has any association with their sex, race, and academic rank. Therefore I propose to examine whether faculty’s teaching confidence of Social Work content varies from differing sex, race, and academic rank. Two-hundred fifty-eight faculty members from across the United States in Schools of Social Work participated in the Faculty Attitudes Survey, an online survey that examined faculty’s attitudes towards content in School of Social Work programs. Specifically, the question we will thoroughly examine is the responses to, “In which areas regarding diversity, human rights, or social and economic justice content do you feel the least confident teaching?”. Participants responded to this open-ended question with teaching content they felt the least confident in teaching. Using qualitative content-coding of responses to open-ended questions and cross-tabulations with chi-square tests, we will be able to examine this question and how it may vary within the different race, sex, and academic status of the participants. This study suggests that the Areas of Multicultural Content MSW faculty feel the least confident teaching does not vary by their sex, race, or academic rank. Also, the results revealed a specific area in MSW multicultural content that faculty felt the least confident teaching. Specifically, findings revealed that content surrounding Other forms of Systemic Oppression (Not race) is an area in which many faculty of different sex, race, and academic rank felt the least confident teaching. Another content area that was most commonly identified by faculty was Critical Social Theories & Frameworks.

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Teaching Social Justice Content: Faculty Teaching Methods and Confidence

Diversity content in the School of Social work has become more incorporated into schools and curriculum as time has gone on, and in a study conducted by researchers from the Praxis Lab at the University of Michigan, the attitudes of faculty towards teaching this diversity content was observed in the form of a survey. One aspect of this survey was looking at what topics social work instructors felt least and most confident teaching in relation to social justice content as well as questions about how these instructors teach social justice content. Based on this, a question can be raised about whether there is a correlation between methods used for teaching social justice content and the confidence faculty in the school of social work possess about teaching this content. In order to answer this question qualitative content-coding was used and the open-ended responses provided from these instructors were what was focused on. The data is still in the process of being evaluated, but based on trends that have been visible so far it can be hypothesized that there will be a significant relationship found between methods used for teaching social justice content and the confidence faculty in the school of social work possess about teaching this content.

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Impact of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives on Faculty Mentoring and Black Women’s Persistence in STEM

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are increasingly implemented in academia to promote an inclusive learning environment, but particularly fall short in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, which are commonly perceived as cold and unwelcoming (Ceglie, 2020). DEI initiatives affect how faculty members act as mentors and how minority students experience education, especially those with intersecting underrepresented identities like Black women. However, there is a gap in the literature about how DEI and faculty mentoring practices converge to impact Black women in STEM. This literature review was conducted utilizing 3 academic databases. Abstract reviews and Zotero citation manager narrowed the results from 207 sources to 43 useful scientific articles which examine how DEI initiatives impact faculty mentoring and consequently encourage Black women to pursue a career in STEM. After extracting information from the literature using virtual annotations, the results were organized in the literature review. The findings indicate that multidimensional, purposeful DEI initiatives encourage multicultural mentoring styles, allow faculty members to recognize the biases they hold, and develop mentors who can professionally and emotionally support the unique experiences of Black women. A mix of formal and informal mentoring, when guided by DEI values, best helps Black women feel more comfortable and persist in the STEM environment. The fundamental takeaway is that universities must actively implement DEI initiatives, rather than passively utilizing colorblind values, to more effectively train faculty mentors who can better encourage Black women to pursue a career in STEM.

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Wicked Solutions Domain – Obesity

Obesity is a complex issue that has been prominent throughout the world for the past few decades. It affects all ages and is a system with multiple levels, feedback loops, and other aspects that make it difficult with which to manage. Various design interventions within local contexts globally exist, however, there is lack of access to all of these context-specific existing solutions. Technologically mediating access to existing solutions, particularly by underserved populations, can contribute to what design researcher Audrey Bennett calls a “wicked solution.” The first step to providing access is compiling information of existing design interventions derived through creative or empirical inquiry. The following review of literature discusses the general topic of design thinking and making towards addressing obesity, the many ways obesity has been addressed in the past, and, also how it is being looked at now.

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Understanding children’s biological beliefs regarding disease transmission of COVID-19

Despite the vast scientific research by Americans on pandemics from the past, little is known about how children are impacted by these unprecedented times and uncertainty. According to Au et al. (2008), the results from their findings suggest that education has the power to foster effective health-promoting behaviors among children and provides a basis for this COVID-COLD study. As a way to understand how children process these scenarios and adapt their behaviors according to public guidelines, this study focuses on how children conceptualize this information during the present-day COVID-19 pandemic. This two-part study reveals how children conceptualize common colds and the COVID-19 virus through qualitative, self-administered studies via a virtual survey. 320 children ages 5-12 from the United States participated in this study and were asked to complete two virtual studies: The Common Cold study and the COVID-19 study. The study is administered over the video-streaming platform Zoom, and the researcher adheres to a script for the entirety of the virtual meeting. Because this study is fairly new, a formal analysis of these research findings has not yet been conducted and an analysis is to-be determined. This study adds on to a fairly underrepresented research area and is part of a growing body of cognitive-developmental research during the COVID-19 pandemic. In delving into a largely unexplored area of cognitive-developmental research, this project hopes to contribute to future research on how best to teach children about colds and viruses. Understanding how children navigate through these unprecedented times and how they conceptualize these abstract concepts allows caregivers, teachers, and adults to learn the most efficient way in educating children in the future.

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Active for Life: The effect of a low-intensity functional circuit training program on endurance among COPD patients

Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) often lead inactive lifestyles due to breathing difficulties, and sedentary behavior may worsen both symptoms and mortality. The moderate-to-vigorous-intensity exercises emphasized by most fitness programs are not feasible for patients with COPD, but increasing time of light-intensity exercise may be an effective alternative. In this study, a randomized-controlled trial is used to determine whether a light-intensity fitness program called Active for Life (designed by Principal Investigator [PI] Janet Larson) is effective in improving aerobic endurance among COPD patients in the long term (after 52 weeks). Qualified participants are randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: the Active for Life intervention and the control group. Both groups are guided through physical and behavioral activities with the goal of educating participants about health, but the Active for Life group is focused on functional circuit training (FCT), while the control group involves chair-based movement. All participants undergo ten weeks of lab-based activities according to treatment group, followed by one year of follow-up appointments and self-paced at-home videos. Aerobic endurance is measured by distance walked during the six-minute walk test at baseline, ten weeks, three months, six months, and one year into the program. We hypothesize that engaging participants in the Active for Life program will increase distance walked during the six-minute walk test.

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The Effects of Out-of-Pocket Payments on Emergency and Trauma Surgery Patients’ Livelihoods

Every year, 3 million US residents suffer from injuries leading to needing medical care. The trauma care system has greatly improved saving lives from the time of injury, but many patients are left with out-of-pocket (OOP) payments whether or not they had insurance coverage. We do not know what the burden of these OOP payments are, including the long term financial, mental, and physical impact. The specific aims of this study are to 1) measure the OOP payments for patients who had an emergency surgical procedure, 2) quantify whether these OOP payments change on average by the type of insurance a patient has (private, Medicaid, Medicare, uninsured), and 3) understand the hardship caused by OOP payments for these emergency surgical procedures on the patient and their family. This study reports the findings from in-depth qualitative interviews of 30 patients =18 years of age sustaining a traumatic injury requiring treatment at the University of Michigan Hospital trauma center. We expect our mixed-methods analysis to elucidate the downstream effects of large OOP payments not otherwise able to be captured in available databases. Our findings will be one of the first to describe the long-term burden of trauma care and estimate the out-of-pocket payments trauma patients face from patient-level data.

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The Effects of Out-of-Pocket Payments on Emergency and Trauma Surgery Patients’ Livelihoods

Every year, 3 million US residents suffer from injuries leading to needing medical care. The trauma care system has greatly improved saving lives from the time of injury, but many patients are left with out-of-pocket (OOP) payments whether or not they had insurance coverage. We do not know what the burden of these OOP payments are, including the long term financial, mental, and physical impact. The specific aims of this study are to 1) measure the OOP payments for patients who had an emergency surgical procedure, 2) quantify whether these OOP payments change on average by the type of insurance a patient has (private, Medicaid, Medicare, uninsured), and 3) understand the hardship caused by OOP payments for these emergency surgical procedures on the patient and their family. This study reports the findings from in-depth qualitative interviews of 30 patients =18 years of age sustaining a traumatic injury requiring treatment at the University of Michigan Hospital trauma center. We expect our mixed-methods analysis to elucidate the downstream effects of large OOP payments not otherwise able to be captured in available databases. Our findings will be one of the first to describe the long-term burden of trauma care and estimate the out-of-pocket payments trauma patients face from patient-level data.

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The Relationship between COVID-19 Racial Discrimination and Mental Health among Asian Americans

Racism and discrimination is a persisting dilemma that has affected people of color in the United States on many levels, including employment, housing, and health. Specifically, there is multiple evidence that indicates cultural racism (including stereotyping) connected to an increased prevalence of mental health concerns and poor overall wellness. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an influx of anti-Asian racism and violence towards Asian American populations. In addition to the implicit and explicit bias that Asian populations have been facing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this current anti-Asian sentiment has the potential to have a toll on their mental and physical health. This research project explores the relationships between encountered racism during the COVID-19 pandemic and mental state among Asian American populations. The method used in this study is a quantitative survey; data collected were based on online survey questions that include demographics, experiences related to racism and/or discrimination after the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, mental state, and actions taken as results of racism experiences. The results and conclusion of the survey are yet to be reviewed and determined. I expect to identify an association between negative COVID-19 racism encounters/heightened fear for one’s safety and worsened mental health. With these results, we can address the need for prevention and intervention strategies to eliminate acts of racism/discrimination and to provide safe and comfortable environments for Asian Americans.

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