Tag: Oregon Trails

Measuring instructor quality and student learning at the University of Oregon, using a value added measure

Presenter(s): Marie-Rose Tonguino—Economics

Faculty Mentor(s): Bill Harbaugh

Session 2: Oregon Trails

Student evaluations of instructors are widely used in higher education to measure the quality of teaching of professors and instructors . Yet, recent research suggests that these evaluations are often biased, especially toward women and ethinic minorities, and that they do not necessarily provide an accurate measure of teaching quality . Research has found that some instructors tend to teach to the test in order to improve student performance on standardized tests, therefore omitting important skills that students need as they further their education . Other instructors have also been found to have bad evaluations and yet appear to be the ones who better prepare students for subsequent classes than their counterparts . For this reason, some researchers have been looking at value added and continuation rates to measure teaching quality, as opposed to measuring instructor quality solely using student evaluations and student performance on standardized tests . Value added is a method of measuring teaching quality through evaluating a student’s performance in a subsequent course compared to their counterparts, after taking the first course from different instructors . Continuation rate is a measure of the percentage of an instructor’s students who go on to take a subsequent related course . This research paper focuses on value added and continuation rate methods to measure instructor quality using University of Oregon data, as opposed to using student evaluations of instructors .

Hogs and Hazelnuts: resolving conflict between oak conservation and organic agriculture

Presenter(s): Calvin Penkauskas—Environmental Science and Biology

Faculty Mentor(s): Alejandro Brambila, Lauren Hallett

Session 2: Oregon Trails

The Oregon hazelnut industry makes up over 99% of domestic production and 4% worldwide . The key economic pest of hazelnuts in the Pacific Northwest is filbertworm and population sinks are located in nearby oak habitat . This is of concern because there is only 5% of oak habitat left in the Willamette Valley, which is mostly on private agricultural land, and oaks are an important keystone species . Here, I present a case study of a novel strategy to reconcile this conflict by using domesticated pigs (hogs) to reduce pest pressure in surrounding native oak habitat . I investigated the use of hogs to glean filbertworm infested acorns from an oak woodland floor, the effects on the mating population, and the subsequent proportion of infested acorns . My results demonstrate that grazing in oak patches can be an effective method to reduce filbertworm pest populations . While hog silvopasture has potential to be an effective biological pest control method, this practice will only be implemented widely if hazelnut farmers are receptive to the benefits it can provide . Furthermore, in addition to supporting diverse and sustainable farm operations, silvopasturing hogs in oak patches can benefit oak conservation goals by converting them from a landowner’s liability into an asset . Since this novel pest management approach seeks to regionally benefit both environmental concerns and farmers, this example provides a model for similar challenges and conflicts where agricultural and wildlands interact in the same landscape .

Ethnolinguistic Vitality of Eugene

Presenter(s): Maya Mackey—International Studies, Spanish

Faculty Mentor(s): Devin Grammon

Session 2: Oregon Trails

Linguistic landscapes are necessary for ethnolinguistic communities to be comfortable in their place of residence . Linguistic landscape is the study of representations of languages that are displayed
in public spaces such as signs, billboards, graffiti, and moving objects . This study examines the Spanish linguistic landscape of Downtown Eugene as it relates to the Spanish-speaking community’s ethnolinguistic vitality . The absence of multilingual signage around Downtown Eugene deprives the Spanish-speaking community of obtaining full access to communal activities and resources . There are many elements that serve a purpose in improving ethnolinguistic landscapes that directly relate to an individual’s comfortableness within a community . Qualitative and quantitative analysis of signs in Spanish, the coding of images, interviews with bilingual members of the Eugene community, and ethnographic data collection was used to determine the ethnolinguistic vitality and perceptions of Downtown Eugene . The analysis shows that there is a lack of signs of various languages in Downtown Eugene . The implementation of multilingual signs is necessary to create a more welcoming community for both residents and visitors of all backgrounds . Although this research is in a current state of development, this proposal shows how to increase the ethnolinguistic vitality for the Spanish-speaking community and will be published and presented to the City of Eugene . Linguistic landscape is necessary for not only the security and accessibility of all residents but for the economy of Eugene as well . When a city shows its willingness to create a safe space for all residents and visitors, people are more likely to be actively involved with the community thus stimulating economic growth .

How Labels Affect Our Self-Confidence

Presenter(s): Isabel Acker—Sociology

Co-Presenter(s): Sofia Chicote, McKenna Porter, Spencer Thoene

Faculty Mentor(s): Melissa Baese-Berk

Session 2: Oregon Trails

The goal of our research project is to answer the question of how labels affect people’s lives and their level of self-confidence . More specifically, we are focusing on college-age students at the University of Oregon for our study . We hope to find data that shows how the labels people choose for themselves, and that others choose for them, have an effect on the level of confidence college-age people have . We want to see if the way that other people perceive individuals has an effect on the self-confidence of the individual . We also hope to determine if there is a difference in the level of confidence people have when they are describing themselves, or when they are describing the labels other people have given them . To accurately conduct this, we’re asking open-ended questions to keep it inclusive . First, we will ask permission to use their answers in our research . We will ask about their name, gender, ethnicity . . .etc, in an open-ended format . We will ask them to rate their self-confidence in different social groups, and when they are by themselves, and see how those differ . We want to ask questions that are detailed and more towards a response describing someone’s affiliations . We hope to be able to compare the way in which your self-identifications coexist and relate to the stereotypes and affiliations that the world would describe us as . We then would like to find the correlation between the two and directly connect that to our self-confidence .