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Creators/Authors contains: "Ziker, John"

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  1. This is the dataset and code needed to run the analyses for Study 3 highlighted in the article: Ziker, John P., Jerry Alan Fails, Kendall House, Jessi Boyer, Michael Wendell, Hollie Abele, Letizia Maukar, and Kayla Ramirez. 2025. “Parent–Child Adaptive Responses for Digital Resilience.” Social Sciences 14 (4): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14040197. The dataset and code were originally made available here: https://github.com/johnziker/digitalResilienceofYouth 
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  2. Free, publicly-accessible full text available October 29, 2026
  3. The internet is a virtual social environment, where it can be difficult to discern genuine threats. The goal of this research is to develop new insights into parents' perceptions of online risks to their children. The project focuses on the parents of children in middle childhood, ages 6-12. The main goal is to gain insights that will inform the development of digital environments that more accurately align online dangers and parental fears. To address this alignment, this project brings together experts in evolutionary anthropology, computer science, and digital experience design in a novel interdisciplinary collaboration. The project will shed light on a theoretical framing, the digital ecology of fear. The project will advance a burgeoning new area of research and design that can impact cybersecurity for families. 
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  4. This research investigates U.S. parents’ responses to the rapidly changing, novel environment of the internet, applying evolutionary theory and interdisciplinary methodologies. Novel environments pose potential challenges to existing adaptive strategies, so this research investigates important questions about how parents and children perceive the risks of children’s entry into the virtual world and how they mitigate potential risks. The research focuses on parents of children in middle childhood (children ages 6–12), a significant period in human life history when children start building relationships outside the family. We utilize in-depth interviews (n = 26), cultural domain analysis (n = 32), surveys (n = 199), and participatory co-design (n = 34) to synergize theoretical concepts in evolutionary anthropology with the applied research focus of human–computer interaction. Cultural domain maps and interview results identify and classify perceptions of costs, benefits, and risks, including intrinsic and extrinsic sources of risk and risk tangibility. Survey results further identify platforms and risks of highest priority and confirm parental interest in new kinds of tools for managing the digital experiences of their children. Life history theory informs our approach to the development of parental control software that favors skill building and encourages parent–child discussions supporting child executive function and resilience to risks. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2026
  5. Abstract Nenets reindeer pastoralists of Yamal in the Russian Arctic, successfully deal with rapidly changing climate and natural gas industrialization. We present results from our long-term ethnographic study (2001–present) on the adaptive strategies that Nenets nomadic households have employed over time, their tradeoffs, inherent risks, and social implications of these strategies. While some strategies limit the adaptive flexibility of herding, they simultaneously enable agency that keeps Nenets households on the land—critical for maintaining their nomadism. Rapid climate change in the Arctic, which could lead to increased icing of pastures, makes reindeer herding more vulnerable. We examine meteorological data from Yamal to better understand the climatic trends challenging reindeer nomadism. Our analysis is relevant for policymakers through understanding Nenets adaptation and interactions with ecological processes and institutions. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available December 1, 2025
  6. Nenets reindeer pastoralists on the Yamal Peninsula of the Russian Arctic have demonstrated success in dealing with rapidly changing climatic conditions and the growing built environment associated with the natural gas industry. We pair our observations of a set of 28 Nenets households with hydrometeorological data to better understand the challenges of reindeer nomadism in this time of unprecedented change. We assembled a data set based on our ethnographic work with reindeer herding households beginning in 2001 through 2022, following 28 households at irregular intervals. The source of these data include surveys, participant observation, and digital communication. For this analysis we extracted information and coded variables for: reindeer herd size, migration distances, locations of summer and winter camps, annual frequency of camp movement, changes in migration patterns, and reasons for choice of migration route. These data were combined with relevant weather parameters derived from the ERA5 reanalysis data product for the immediate areas (30 kilometer (km) grid) surrounding summer and winter camps. We conducted a Bayesian logistic regression using the brms package in R Statistical Software (v4.1.2) analyzing factors contributing to ‘change’ or ‘no change’ in migration routes. Five ERA5 climate variables representing summer heating and winter warming and rain on snow (ROS) events were z-score normalized. Year of observation was treated as a factor. Posterior distribution of climate variables showed no discernable effects on household migration decisions. 
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  7. Abstract Science, engineering, and society increasingly require integrative thinking about emerging problems in complex systems, a notion referred to as convergence science. Due to the concurrent pressures of two main stressors—rapid climate change and industrialization, Arctic research demands such a paradigm of scientific inquiry. This perspective represents a synthesis of a vision for its application in Arctic system studies, developed by a group of disciplinary experts consisting of social and earth system scientists, ecologists, and engineers. Our objective is to demonstrate how convergence research questions can be developed via a holistic view of system interactions that are then parsed into material links and concrete inquiries of disciplinary and interdisciplinary nature. We illustrate the application of the convergence science paradigm to several forms of Arctic stressors using the Yamal Peninsula of the Russian Arctic as a representative natural laboratory with a biogeographic gradient from the forest‐tundra ecotone to the high Arctic. 
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  8. Instructors’ interactions can foster knowledge sharing around teaching and the use of research-based instructional strategies (RBIS). Coordinated teaching presents an impetus for instructors’ interactions and creates opportunities for instructional improvement but also potentially limits an instructor’s autonomy. In this study, we sought to characterize the extent of coordination present in introductory undergraduate courses and to understand how departments and instructors implement and experience course coordination. We examined survey data from 3,641 chemistry, mathematics, and physics instructors at three institution types and conducted follow-up interviews with a subset of 24 survey respondents to determine what types of coordination existed, what factors led to coordination, how coordination constrained instruction, and how instructors maintained autonomy within coordinated contexts. We classified three approaches to coordination at both the overall course and course component levels: independent (i.e., not coordinated), collaborative (decision-making by instructor and others), controlled (decision-making by others, not instructor). Two course components, content coverage and textbooks, were highly coordinated. These curricular components were often decided through formal or informal committees, but these decisions were seldom revisited. This limited the ability for instructors to participate in the decision-making process, the level of interactions between instructors, and the pedagogical growth that could have occurred through these conversations. Decision-making around the other two course components, instructional methods and exams, was more likely to be independently determined by the instructors, who valued this autonomy. Participants in the study identified various ways in which collaborative coordination of courses can promote but also inhibit pedagogical growth. Our findings indicate that the benefits of collaborative course coordination can be realized when departments develop coordinated approaches that value each instructor’s autonomy, incorporate shared and ongoing decision-making, and facilitate collaborative interactions and knowledge sharing among instructors. 
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  9. Abstract Instructional reform in STEM aims for the widespread adoption of evidence based instructional practices (EBIPS), practices that implement active learning. Research recognizes that faculty social networks regarding discussion or advice about teaching may matter to such efforts. But teaching is not the only priority for university faculty – meeting research expectations is at least as important and, often, more consequential for tenure and promotion decisions. We see value in understanding how research networks, based on discussion and advice about research matters, relate to teaching networks to see if and how such networks could advance instructional reform efforts. Our research examines data from three departments (biology, chemistry, and geosciences) at three universities that had recently received funding to enhance adoption of EBIPs in STEM fields. We evaluate exponential random graph models of the teaching network and find that (a) the existence of a research tie from one faculty member$$i$$ i to another$$j$$ j enhances the prospects of a teaching tie from$$i$$ i to$$j$$ j , but (b) even though faculty highly placed in the teaching network are more likely to be extensive EBIP users, faculty highly placed in the research network are not, dimming prospects for leveraging research networks to advance STEM instructional reforms. 
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