Game based learning is a new game play mechanism that the players explore various aspects of game play in a learning context designed by the instructor or the game designer. Nevertheless, general acceptance of game based learning as a new learning paradigm was deferred by a lack of well-controlled, large sample efficacy studies. To address the increasing need of cybersecurity workforce, this paper introduces a game based learning method for high school cybersecurity education. Purdue University Northwest launched GenCyber high school summer camps to about 200 high school students in Chicago metropolitan area. The survey conducted after the summer camp indicated that the game based learning for cybersecurity education was very effective in cybersecurity awareness training. Further analysis of survey data revealed that there is a gender difference in raising students’ interests in cybersecurity and computer science education using game based learning method.
more »
« less
Development and Evaluation of Cybersecurity Education Games for High School Students
Cybersecurity workforce development is the key to protecting information and information systems, and yet more than 30% of companies are short on security expertise. To address this need, the current authors have developed four cybersecurity education games to teach social engineering, secure online behavior, cyber defense methods, and cybersecurity first principles. These games are intended to recruit the next generation cybersecurity workforce by developing an innovative cybersecurity curriculum and pedagogical methods to provide high school students with hands-on activities in a game-based learning environment. Purdue University Northwest (PNW) offered high school summer camps for 181 high school students in June of 2016 and June of 2017. Out of 181 high school participants, 107 were underrepresented minority students, including African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans. To evaluate the effectiveness of the cybersecurity education games, post-camp surveys were conducted with 154 camp participants. The survey results indicated that the games were very effective in cybersecurity awareness training. Furthermore, the cybersecurity education games were more effective for male students than female students in raising student interest in computer science and cybersecurity.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1723666
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10105765
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International journal of engineering research & innovation
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2152-4157
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 25-35
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The ongoing workforce shortage of skilled and diverse cybersecurity professionals coupled with the continued upward trend of cybercrime has led to an increased number of funding opportunities from the federal government to support projects focused on technical skills development. Significant emphasis is placed on academic transfer pathways and education-to-career pathways for students from K-12 to community college and beyond. Utilizing funding from multiple sources, faculty have intertwined grant project activities to increase awareness of cybersecurity careers and academic pathways, emphasizing digital forensics and incident response. The two grant projects, Cyber Up! and GenCyber Girls, aimed to develop college-level curriculum and cybersecurity workshops for female high school students. Project activities were synthesized to create a summer camp for high school students based on the curriculum developed for the college programs in digital forensics and incident response. The synergy between the projects has shown an increase in female participation in the digital forensics course and helped build interest in cybersecurity careers among K-12 students.more » « less
-
To both broaden and increase participation in any STEM field such as cybersecurity, we need to attract more students. Research shows that to do this, students need to be engaged with cybersecurity during middle school. There is a lack of age-appropriate and classroom-ready cybersecurity curriculum, however, and many teachers feel unprepared to teach the subject. To address this gap, the CyberMiSTS project team created a summer professional development workshop for middle school teachers that integrated a recent research-based understanding of cybersecurity into a curriculum that is accessible to both middle school students and their teachers. The project sought to encourage participation of a broad and diverse set of students in the field of cybersecurity by showing them how human relations play an important role in cybersecurity. We discuss our prior related work using branching web comics to introduce middle school students to cybersecurity concepts and careers, and the state of evidence-based research into effective approaches and methods for cybersecurity education. We identify challenges to broadening the pipeline for a truly diverse cybersecurity workforce that can meet industry’s need for cybersecurity professionals with a wide range of experience and skills. The paper introduces our approach for the teacher professional development workshop, maps how we designed the project to meet our research goals, and documents initial findings regarding what is needed to increase teacher self-efficacy about cybersecurity concepts and careers in a middle school classroom.more » « less
-
Cybersecurity expertise continues to be relevant as a means to confront threats and maintain vital infrastructure in our increasingly digitized world. Public and private initiatives have prioritized building a robust and qualified cybersecurity workforce, requiring student buy-in. However, cybersecurity education typically remains siloed even within computer and information technology (CIT) curriculum. This paper's goal is to support endeavors and strategies of outreach to encourage interest in cybersecurity. To this end, we conducted a survey of 126 CIT students to investigate student perceptions of cybersecurity and its major crosscutting concepts (CCs). The survey also investigates the prevalence of preconceptions of cybersecurity that may encourage or dissuade participation of people from groups underrepresented in computing. Regardless of prior learning, we found that students perceive cybersecurity as a relatively important topic in CIT. We found student perspectives on conceptual foundations of cybersecurity were significantly different (p < .05) than when simply asked about "cybersecurity," indicating many students don't have an accurate internal construct of the field. Several previously studied preconceptions of cybersecurity were reported by participants, with one misconception - that cybersecurity "requires advanced math skills" - significantly more prevalent in women than men (p < .05). Based on our findings, we recommend promoting cybersecurity among post-secondary students by incorporating elements of cybersecurity into non-cybersecurity CIT courses, informed by pedagogical strategies previously used for other topics in responsible computing.more » « less
-
This poster describes how we are using research to inform the development of a cybersecurity education pathway to attract and retain students from groups that are underrepresented in computing fields. The partners include a non-profit research organization, a community-based tech workforce center, a community college, and a K-12 school district that serves predominantly Latinx students. The poster describes our goals, activities, the data we have collected, and how they are being used to create a sustainable pathway from high school to college that attracts a diversity of students. We describe our stages of research utilization, as well as the challenges that we are facing related to using research to ensure equity in the cybersecurity education pathway.more » « less