Changing Gears – Page 2 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Changing Gears

Mentoring, Induction, and Professional Development for Music Teachers

This study focuses on experienced music teacher’s perception of professional development throughout 20 years. The participants in this study are previous students of Dr. Colleen Conway, professor of music education at the University of Michigan. The participants have been studied previously in 1999 and 2009 regarding their experiences with teacher professional development. The purpose of the 2019-2020 study was to see what has changed or is currently changing in schools regarding profession development. This information is critical in order to give music teachers the proper assistance and knowledge in order to allow the students the best experience musical experience possible. The profession needs to know more about how to support music teachers and their work. Other researchers have studied this phenomenon as well. These studies have been published in journals like the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Education Review Policy, Journal of Music Teacher Education, and more. Our key question we are trying to answer with this study is “Based on their 20 years in the field, what can these experienced teachers tell us about music teacher mentoring, induction, and professional development?” My involvement has included transcribing the May 2020 interviews, and assisting in the presentation of the findings for conferences in February and April.

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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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Mapping Prehistoric New World Hunter-Gatherers

This project aims to map hunter-gatherer sites in the Americas and compare them to environmental variables such as NPP. The goal is to see if there are areas where hunter-gatherer density appears inconsistent with environmental sustainability. The aim of this research is to determine if there are places researchers should look for hunter-gatherer sites currently being neglected, which would not be considered with current knowledge. My role in the project involves mapping hunter-gatherer sites starting in Peru, using previous databases and existing literature (via google scholar) about sites in Peru. This is what is ultimately compared to models of environmental sustainability. My research so far suggests there will likely be numerous hunter-gatherer sites near the Pacific coast of Peru. Whether this is based on environment or archaeological bias is uncertain. I hypothesize that there will be areas with environmental sustainability that have few hunter-gatherer sites and the same vice versa.

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Bronze Age Metallurgy in Ayia Irini, Kea, Greece and Dhaskalio-Kavos, Keros, Greece

During the Bronze Age much metallurgical activity and trade occurred throughout the Cycladic archipelago in the Aegean Sea. In this island cluster there is currently only a limited amount of knowledge of metallurgical activity. Overall this study aims to analyze how the Cycladic site Ayia Irini, Kea, Greece–which appears to be a major hub of metallurgical significance throughout much of the Bronze Age–compares with recently investigated sites. To test the hypothesis that Ayia Irini is a metallurgical output and trade hub, the site was compared with recent finds from other Cycladic sites. An extensive search of the last 20 years of Cycladic finds in the British School at Athens’ Archaeological Reports journal was conducted. Additionally a case study specifically comparing Ayia Irini with a well-known major site–Dhaskalio-Kavos, Keros, Greece–was undertaken. Ultimately the results show that Ayia Irini seems to be a major metallurgical site of the Cyclades archipelago, with both similarities to and differences from Dhaskalio-Kavos, which also preserves extensive evidence for metallurgical activities. Since metallurgy was of paramount social and economic importance in the Aegean region during the Bronze Age, Ayia Irini and other sites in the Cyclades should be further investigated.

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Offline complementors’ decision to join entrant platforms

Two-sided platforms, which rely on participants from the distinct network (users and complementors), heavily depend on the existence of complementors. For many platforms, like Lyft, the entrance of complementors brought benefit to the platform. There’s a great amount of research that already finds out the importance of complementors but they paid little emphasis on the complementors’ heterogenous decisions to collaborate with a particular platform. In the research, based on the food delivery platform data especially in LA from 2016 to 2017, we analyze the restaurants’ decision to join the food delivery platforms. Based on their decisions and the characteristics of the restaurants, we discuss how complementors’ organizational attributes influence their decisions to adopt an entrant platform. Our preliminary results show that restaurants which already entered some platforms will be more likely to join a new platform. This paper provides implications on how entrant platforms can establish an initial population of complementors, preparing the ground to compete with incumbent platforms. Keywords: Two-sided platforms; offline complementors; food delivery platforms; adjustment costs; inter-firm relationships

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Offline Complementors’ Decision to Join Entrant Platforms

Two-sided platforms, which rely on participants from the distinct network (users and complementors), heavily depend on the existence of complementors. For many platforms, like Lyft, the entrance of complementors brought benefit to the platform. There’s a great amount of research that already finds out the importance of complementors but they paid little emphasis on the complementors’ heterogenous decisions to collaborate with a particular platform. In the research, based on the food delivery platform data especially in LA from 2016 to 2017, we analyze the restaurants’ decision to join the food delivery platforms. Based on their decisions and the characteristics of the restaurants, we discuss how complementors’ organizational attributes influence their decisions to adopt an entrant platform. Our preliminary results show that restaurants which already entered some platforms will be more likely to join a new platform. This paper provides implications on how entrant platforms can establish an initial population of complementors, preparing the ground to compete with incumbent platforms. Keywords: Two-sided platforms; offline complementors; food delivery platforms; adjustment costs; inter-firm relationships

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Creative Writing & Publishing

My project is a creative writing mentorship. My mentor holds weekly workshops with me and my peers to help us improve our creative writing. Two of us, including me, focus on poetry, while the other two write fiction. In addition to workshops, the other side of the project involves researching literary journals and compiling them into a database to use as a reference for when we are ready to submit our finished works to them for potential publication. The purpose of the project is to improve my creative writing skills and potentially become a published writer.

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COVID 19 Tracking and Modeling

To build the model for COVID-19 confirmed and death cases, our group used several approaches to predict the data. We first build the model by Ridge Regression and it turns out to be pretty good on ordinary input. However, for states like MI which have a large fluctuation in data, Ridge Regression performs poorly. Then, we start to use the Neural Network approach and it turns out to be better at unordinary data; however, it has the problem of overfitting. After discussion, we add the social mobility data into account and it greatly reduces the error. Currently, we are working on the approach to predict state-level and add all the models up to predict the whole US.

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The Politics of Eliminating Poverty: An Investigation of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa.

Conditional Cash Transfer Programs (CCT) are cutting edge welfare programs, as they aim to eliminate poverty through direct governmental payments, provided that the recipients abide by certain conditionalities. When analyzing the outcomes of these programs, it is essential to address their interplay with politics. However, current research does not fully take into account how political changes over time influence the impacts of CCT programs. Throughout my guided research, I have helped to strengthen this connection through a comparative CCT literature review, analyzing World Bank data, and tracing how CTT implementation has varied under various presidential administrations within Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa. As part of the literature review, I evaluated articles that compared Brazil and South Africa to strengthen our research’s transcontinental analysis. Then, I compiled and sorted World Bank data to identify CCT performance under a variety of conditions and helped identify data changes and inconsistencies among each country. Finally, I analyzed articles and reports that identify CCT implementation across various presidential administrations in Mexico and Brazil. My research of CCT programs in Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa is crucial to identify their relative effectiveness, in spite of political changes over time. Although CCTs are relatively new policies, their targeted approach shows that these middle-income countries are global trendsetters in successful poverty elimination.

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El Problema con el Marianismo: ERI and Intragroup Discrimination in Latinx Women

Past research asserts that Latinx children receive differential treatment and socialization based on their gender, and this likely relates to their ethnic-racial identity (ERI) in adulthood (Raffaelli & Ontai, 2004). The present study aims to understand the relationship between Latinx adult women and how they perceive discrimination. The study also examines other ways that discrimination and ERI may affect Latinx women. This study focuses on the topic of marianismo (defined as a gender norm in Latinx culture that emphasizes familism, dependency and submissiveness in women (Sanchez, Smith & Adams, 2018) as opposed to machismo) and the ways in which traditional values and intragroup discrimination towards women in the Latinx community affect self-esteem and other mental health factors. Marianismo also encourages passivity in women while machismo emphasizes assertiveness in men (Nuñez et al., 2015). Data were collected using a Spanish-language Qualtrics survey completed by a large sample of adult Latinx women from the United States. I hypothesize that Latinx men will score more positively on measures of ERI affirmation and resolution than women and will likely have higher self-esteem and less depressive symptoms. Measures used for this Spanish-language study include a Self-Esteem Measure, a Depressive Symptoms Measure, and an ERI measure. The ERI measure assesses the topics of ERI exploration, affirmation, and resolution (Douglass & Umaña-Taylor, 2015). Projected results provide insight into the relationship between Latinx women’s ERI and their mental health, while also delving into the complexity of intersectional identities as they pertain to overall well-being. Key words: Latinx, marianismo, Ethnic-Racial Identity, depressive symptoms, self-esteem, gender, discrimination

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