Social Sciences – Page 4 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Social Sciences

Disability Justice and Technology

Blind people use commercially available visual description services powered by either human agents or artificial intelligence in their daily lives to alleviate access barriers. However, few works discuss the security risks for Blind people when inadvertently exposing private content during the use of these services. From the personal narratives of Blind people, this study seeks to inform the design of privacy preserving and equitable technologies for and with Blind people. Through semi-structured interviews with Blind people, this study unearths the current privacy-preserving practices they use, and the values and considerations to be included in emerging technologies. This work offers the conceptualization of image obfuscation techniques in upcoming design iterations of visual description services.

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Resilience in Crisis

Immigrants in the United States play an ambivalent role in the public health crisis of COVID-19. They are especially vulnerable to economic burden, health risk, and mental health issues due to lack of access to affordable healthcare. On the other hand, immigrant healthcare workers play a vital part in fighting against the pandemic and providing culturally sensitive care (Tayaben and Younas 2020). Focusing on immigrants’ challenges during the public health crisis, this creative arts project further recognizes their under-representation in the depiction of such challenges by the mainstream media. Through collaboration with Chicago-based community arts group CIRCA-Pintig (CP), this project provides immigrants with a voice for storytelling via theatre arts.

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Analyzing how to redesign the University of Michigan website for the higher education of First Generation students

The First-Generation program has grown tremendously within the past few years. One of the key resources is the First Generation website that provides a plethora of information to University of Michigan first-generation students. Ideally, the website is designed for students to build connections and seek support. Our project explores if the website is performing to students’ standards and if the needs of University of Michigan first-generation students are being met. The overall purpose of this project is to improve the performance based on the feedback we get from our participants.

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Analyzing How to Redesign the University of Michigan Website for the Higher Education of First Generation Students

The First-Generation program has grown tremendously within the past few years. One of the key resources is the First Generation website that provides a plethora of information to University of Michigan first-generation students. Ideally, the website is designed for students to build connections and seek support. Our project explores if the website is performing to students’ standards and if the needs of University of Michigan first-generation students are being met. The overall purpose of this project is to improve the performance based on the feedback we get from our participants.

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Modelling Specialists and Generalists in the Task Allocation Problem

Successful teams have a balanced range of skillsets. Agents – those autonomous entities responsible for completing tasks – are often functionally diverse, with different strengths and capabilities. Some will be generalists, completing a wide range of tasks. Others will be specialists with narrower capabilities, but higher performance at the tasks they’re capable of. We hypothesise that problem-solving teams attempting task-allocation problems can strike an optimal balance between specialists and generalists. Too many specialists may leave certain agents overloaded and tasks incomplete. Too many generalists may keep everyone busy, but slow the team down. We anticipate that peak performance will make use of individual strengths while ensuring no skill gaps exist. Our agent based-model allows us to selectively manipulate generalist-specialist ratios under different task allocation strategies. The computational approach looks at functional diversity from a theoretical perspective, making our findings generalizable over many fields. We hope our insights about team performance optimization can guide processes in science and management in an increasingly intricate world.

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STEM Advanced Placement: Examining Variations in Policies Among AAU Institutions

Since the first Advanced Placement (AP) tests were given in 1952, the approach to awarding collegiate credit for these examinations has greatly fluctuated. While the grading scale for these exams ranges from 0 to 5, the amount and type of college credit equated with these scores is highly subjective. In this study, we examined the institutional policies of the members of the Big Ten conference and the Association of American Universities (AAU) in order to understand how institutions differ in their credit policies for STEM AP exams. Given the proliferation of AP courses, this project is paramount in educating high school students about how their success in AP exams can result in very different amounts and types of credit depending on their enrolled institution. The investigators also hope to inform future policy decisions in providing more transparent and fair credit policies across higher education institutions.

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Can a growth mindset-based syllabus improve students’ perceptions of taking challenging coursework?

Research methods/statistics is a challenging requirement that many psychology majors are reluctant or anxious to take. This study examines if a syllabus designed to facilitate a growth mindset?the belief that abilities can be developed as opposed to being fixed?can improve students’ perceptions of and willingness to take a challenging course on research methods in psychology. Many studies now support the benefits of a growth mindset, such as greater perseverance in the face of challenges (Hochanadel, A., & Finamore, D., 2015) and improved academic performance, even in advanced mathematics (Yeager et al. 2019). Studies also demonstrate that course syllabi can markedly affect students’ perceptions of the course and instructor (Saville, Zinn, Brown, & Marchuk, 2010). In this study, participants were randomly assigned to read either a conventional or growth-mindset based syllabus and then report their course perceptions, motivation to take, and perceived ability to succeed in the Research Methods in Psychology course after a brief growth mindset measure. Analyses of variance should reveal that students who read the growth mindset-oriented syllabus report significantly greater both motivation to enroll and perceived ability to succeed in the course as well as more positive perceptions of it and more of a growth mindset than do students who read a standard syllabus with the same requirements. Simply designing a syllabus to facilitate a growth mindset may thus be a brief and cost-effective way to increase students’ enrollment and self-efficacy in challenging courses.

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How Do Companies Respond to Consumer Boycotts? A Deeper Understanding of the Interplay between Social Movements, Corporations and Political Actors.

Xinyue Cao Pronouns: she/her/hers Research Mentor(s): Pablo Sanz, PhD Candidate Research Mentor School/College/Department: Strategy Department, Ross School of Business Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021 Session: Session 6 (4pm-4:50pm) Breakout Room: Room 19 Presenter: 1 Event Link Abstract For privacy concerns this abstract cannot be published at this time. Authors: Xinyue Cao, Isaac Matti Research

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How Algorithms are Reinforcing Oppressive views towards Black Women

The internet and search engines are used daily by most people in the U.S. However, most users are not familiar with the idea of algorithmic bias and how algorithms impact our communities and society. Algorithmic biases and the ethics of various technological algorithms can affect how gender, race, class systems, and many other categories are viewed and experienced from a societal lens. This project investigates the concepts of bias, discrimination, and ethics in current and emerging technological algorithms. This research will explore how Black Women are viewed from a societal and historical standpoint when searched for in various internet search engines and how these search results affect Black Women from an oppressive standpoint. From this investigation, educational YouTube content is created along with lesson plans based on the topic to be taught in the classroom. These lesson plans are taught in two separate classrooms, one in Detroit, MI with a majority African American community and the other in Ann Arbor, with a majority white population. An analysis of these two interactions along with reports of what has been learned about algorithmic bias and visuals gathered, awareness of the topic will be spread along with looking to find solutions to the algorithmic problems at hand. This research is able to provide a critical understanding of algorithms in technology. From this research one can see how bias, discrimination, and ethics show up in the media we constantly use and how these biases affect various societal communities. Minorities and social groups will also be able to heavily benefit from this research along with the companies that are creating these algorithms.

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Assessing Men’s Proclivity to Recognizing Subtle Gender Bias Against Women in STEM

Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) frequently encounter gender bias (e.g., questioning of their STEM ability, assignment to secretarial roles). Given the subtle and ambiguous nature of contemporary sexism, people vary in their likelihood of recognizing subtly sexist interactions. Past research demonstrates that women are more sensitive to gender bias and more readily recognize it when it occurs. However, there remains a dearth of research related to men’s experiences in witnessing bias. In the present research, we ask: (1) what are the individual difference measures that contribute to men’s proclivity in recognizing subtle gender bias, (2) what are the affective consequences of recognizing subtle gender bias during group tasks, and (3) how do men’s affective states after witnessing subtle gender bias influence their desire to work with women in mixed-gendered groups? STEM identified men (N=275) read a fake transcript depicting a conversation between 3 STEM identified college students (1 woman, 2 men). Participants were exposed to one of two transcripts in which a man either (a) demonstrates subtle gender bias against a woman or (b) engages in a neutral interaction with a woman. After reading the transcript, participants completed measures related to their affect (state and collective), their impressions of the interaction (open and closed ended), and behavioral measures related to the students in the transcript. Open ended responses were coded to determine recognition of bias. Findings and implications for this work are discussed.

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