Social Sciences – Page 13 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Social Sciences

Perceptions of COVID Risk

The ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic has forced every American to make difficult choices as to when they find it acceptable to possibly expose themselves to this deadly virus. An individual’s decision is based on their perceptions of how likely they are to contract the virus. These perceptions are influenced by many factors such as age, preferred political ideology, financial status, occupation, etc. This project focuses on a person’s perceived risk of contracting COVID-19. Two studies were conducted for this project: in Study 1, we asked participants to look at one of two scenarios where a person might be exposed to COVID-19 and rate the likelihood of that individual contracting COVID. In one scenario, the person was in a risky situation but had encounters with only one person, while in the other, they had brief yet safer encounters with multiple people. Participants in response to the first study perceived having only one contact as safer, even though this was not the reality. In Study 2, participants judged how many people they believe would die from COVID and Influenza out of 1000 people, and were then asked to state their political preferences. Results showed that Biden and Trump voters estimated the fatality of COVID-19 and Influenza similarly, however, thoughts on how society is to handle the COVID-19 pandemic were significantly different between both groups.

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What Are People Thinking About the Elections and Other Political Topics?

In the weeks leading up to an election, any given news story can take off and affect what people are thinking about the various candidates. This study utilized open ended survey data to try to gain a better understanding of which stories took off and how they affected voters’ perceptions. In 2020, no story dominated quite like Covid-19 and the federal response to it and the issues it posed. This project looked to compare survey responses that mentioned Covid-19 in some way. Special attention was payed to what sorts of things were discussed in connection to the disease, whether it be denial/disinformation or the economy. Additionally, data was coded to take note of whether a survey respondent made any mention of either of the candidates or what their plan on voting was. Finally, with all of the above in mind, conclusions were drawn about connections between positive or negative associations between a candidate and the pandemic. This research can be later applied to other coding for open-ended survey data and how it can be used to understand the sentiment behind respondents’ answers.

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Perceptions of COVID Risk

The ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic has forced every American to make difficult choices as to when they find it acceptable to possibly expose themselves to this deadly virus. An individual’s decision is based on their perceptions of how likely they are to contract the virus. These perceptions are influenced by many factors such as age, preferred political ideology, financial status, occupation, etc. This project focuses on a person’s perceived risk of contracting COVID-19. Two studies were conducted for this project: in Study 1, we asked participants to look at one of two scenarios where a person might be exposed to COVID-19 and rate the likelihood of that individual contracting COVID. In one scenario, the person was in a risky situation but had encounters with only one person, while in the other, they had brief yet safer encounters with multiple people. Participants in response to the first study perceived having only one contact as safer, even though this was not the reality. In Study 2, participants judged how many people they believe would die from COVID and Influenza out of a 1000 people, and were then asked to state their political preferences. Results showed that Biden and Trump voters estimated the fatality of COVID-19 and Influenza similarly, however, thoughts on how society is to handle the COVID-19 pandemic were significantly different between both groups.

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Optimizing a Daily Mindfulness Intervention to Reduce Stress from Discrimination among Sexual and Gender Minorities of Color

Sexual and gender minorities of color face a disproportionate amount of stress from microaggressions, discrimination in the workplace and in the social world, and other sources on a daily basis as a result of their identity. This study will ask sexual and gender minorities of color to participate in a week of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is a practice designed to have positive effects on an individual’s mental health by focusing on “the four pillars of the science of training the mind”: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. This study will be administered remotely through the mobile application Healthy Minds Program. It will ask participants to take a survey to measure stress at the beginning of the study, act out guided meditation exercises, and a final survey at the end of the study. This study will randomize which guided meditation exercises a participant will receive in order to determine which ones have the greatest positive effect on their stress levels. In addition, participants will log nightly diary entries detailing their daily activities and how meditation impacted their mood throughout the study. This project will then compile and measure the difference in stress levels before and after the meditation exercises to see whether mindfulness will significantly reduce participants’ stress levels. We expect that these mindfulness sessions will reduce their stress levels because we believe that purposeful reflection will especially help participants manage how they view their stressors, which are often beyond their control.

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The Police Killings and Protest Dataset

Police killings have been a prominent issue in the United States and seemingly has been increasing over the past 6 years. Some of these killings, such as Michael Brown and Georgy Floyd have sparked nationwide protests that have drawn crowds of 10,000 people. While some of these police killings have gained widespread attention, there are hundreds that have gone unnoticed. This raises the question of why certain police killings spark protests and others don’t. In order to facilitate this research, all police killings from 2015 and 2016 will be coded. Through extensive online searches and the use of various social media platforms protests for each killing is recorded. The location of the protest, the number of participants, who organized the protests, and the race of the protesters are all recorded and are input into an survey system that organizes the information. Based on the current information collected, it appears that race is one of the most important components. African Americans that were killed by police on average have more protests surrounding their death. This is likely tied to the underlying racist sentiments held by many police departments. Second to race, age was an important component. For non-Black victims, those who were 18 years of age or younger had more protests surrounding their death and for Black victims under 18 there were also more protests in comparison to those that were older. With the information collected, it can be concluded that while all police killings don’t lead to protests, race and age are big determining factors for if there are.

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The effect of a decedent’s mental health status on protests following police killings

In 2015, 1,146 Americans were killed by the police, and some of these killings were followed by protests. It is important to investigate why some killings led to protests while others did not. The existence of a protest could be due to numerous factors, such as location, the age of the decedent, the existence of cell phone footage, etc. Specifically, this research investigates whether people are more likely to protest a police killing if the decedent had mental health issues. In order to answer this question, we gather data on each police killing in 2015 using Google search, local newspapers, and social media. This data included whether the decedent had a history of mental health disorders, whether they were behaving erratically at the time of their death, and whether there were any protests following their death. Then, a random sample of 701 of the deaths was taken to investigate whether the decedent’s mental health affected the existence of a protest. We will use the R statistical software and t-tests to determine whether a decedent’s mental health status affects the existence of protests. We expect that there will be more protests if a decedent has mental health issues. These results will reveal more information about protests following police killings in the United States, an important topic because protests have the potential to alter the aftermath of a killing and lead to a heightened awareness of social issues.

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The Effect of a Decedent’s Mental Health on Protests Following Police Killings

n 2015, 1,146 Americans were killed by the police, and some of these killings were followed by protests. It is important to investigate why some killings led to protests while others did not. The existence of a protest could be due to numerous factors, such as location, the age of the decedent, the existence of cell phone footage, etc. Specifically, this research investigates whether people are more likely to protest a police killing if the decedent had mental health issues. In order to answer this question, we gather data on each police killing in 2015 using Google search, local newspapers, and social media. This data included whether the decedent had a history of mental health disorders, whether they were behaving erratically at the time of their death, and whether there were any protests following their death. Then, a random sample of 701 of the deaths was taken to investigate whether the decedent’s mental health affected the existence of a protest. We will use the R statistical software and t-tests to determine whether a decedent’s mental health status affects the existence of protests. We expect that there will be more protests if a decedent has mental health issues. These results will reveal more information about protests following police killings in the United States, an important topic because protests have the potential to alter the aftermath of a killing and lead to a heightened awareness of social issues.

The Effect of a Decedent’s Mental Health on Protests Following Police Killings Read More »

Studying the Role of Feedback and Assessment in Teacher Preparation

Educator preparation programs train aspiring primary and secondary school teachers by pairing them with advising instructors to receive mentorship through observation, co-teaching, and independent student instruction. Until recently, little attention was given to the impact of effective mentorship from advising instructors. This study examines the impact of instructionally effective mentorship on aspiring teachers by categorizing over 4000 entries of written feedback, provided by the Tennessee Department of Education, that mentor teachers have given to training teachers. These feedback entries are coded into any applicable number of the 16 different categories of instructional improvement, including areas of both instructional content and quality of instruction. The area of study specific to the UROP project focuses on the role of feedback in student assessment. Results are expected to demonstrate that student teachers receiving feedback about their skills in student assessment feel more confident in assessing student learning following their completion of the educator preparation program. This study is part of a growing body of research on student teacher preparation reform. By determining specific areas of instructional feedback to be effective or ineffective, this research will contribute potential policy changes in educator preparation programs.

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Ross Business+Tech

The Business + Tech initiative of Ross’ primary goal is to promote tech literacy among business students, both BBA and MBA, as well as throughout the university in partnering with several initiatives, classes, and more. There are several parts of Business + Tech which focus on a different aspect of promoting tech literacy, such as hosting a conference related to sports analytics and sports business, or learning emerging technologies, or hosting the Datathon for 200-300 student participants. The specific aspect of Tech Startups includes initiatives such as hosting a podcast interviewing startup founders, a speaker series along with a pitch competition in partnership with other initiatives, and a blog post series to be published on the website for both Michigan students, faculty, and the general public to view. Another aspect of this team includes putting together a tech startup ecosystem of startups in the Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Southeastern Michigan area, as well as putting together data for how different initiatives within the University of Michigan, such as alumni, current students involved in tech initiatives, student organizations, faculty, and coursework which relate to tech and help promotes the tech literacy throughout the university. As for the website, methodology includes those who read blog posts learning more about the tech startup space, including a self-survey which can be taken at any time to track the progress of concepts of tech that are learned in perusing the website’s blog posts. Currently, the Business + Tech team is hosting initiatives and backlogging blog posts to have content on the website when it is published and released to the public. Similar to Harvard’s business and tech initiatives and other such schools, the goal is to build a tech pillar within Ross for both MBAs and BBAs, helping bolster the reputation of Ross in the tech community and providing resources for students to become tech literate.

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Studying the Impact of Mentor Feedback on Preservice Teacher Satisfaction

Feedback has been pointed out as a prerequisite for professional growth for experts and novices alike. In the education field, researchers have argued that preservice teachers, or student teachers, need high quality feedback to become exemplary teachers for their future students. One of the goals of the Mentors Matter initiative was to study what constitutes quality feedback during clinical placements from mentor teachers and university supervisors. In our project, we coded 4,010 comments to 394 student teachers for the content and quality that student teachers received as part of their clinical assessments. In our presentation, we will discuss how comments on Teacher Attributes (TA), Connections across Observations (CaO), Data Driven Feedback (DDF), and Actionable Recommendation (AR) relate to student teachers’ satisfaction with their clinical placements. Our results can help establish a guideline for having mentor teachers and university supervisors to provide high quality feedback to student teachers to train and prepare stronger teachers.

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