There is little research or understanding of curricular differences between two- and four-year programs, career development of engineering technology (ET) students, and professional preparation for ET early career professionals [1]. Yet, ET credentials (including certificates, two-, and four-year degrees) represent over half of all engineering credentials awarded in the U.S [2]. ET professionals are important hands-on members of engineering teams who have specialized knowledge of components and engineering systems. This research study focuses on how career orientations affect engineering formation of ET students educated at two-year colleges. The theoretical framework guiding this study is Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). SCCT is a theory which situates attitudes, interests, and experiences and links self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and personal goals to educational and career decisions and outcomes [3]. Student knowledge of attitudes toward and motivation to pursue STEM and engineering education can impact academic performance and indicate future career interest and participation in the STEM workforce [4]. This knowledge may be measured through career orientations or career anchors. A career anchor is a combination of self-concept characteristics which includes talents, skills, abilities, motives, needs, attitudes, and values. Career anchors can develop over time and aid in shaping personal and career identity [6]. The purpose of this quantitative research study is to identify dimensions of career orientations and anchors at various educational stages to map to ET career pathways. The research question this study aims to answer is: For students educated in two-year college ET programs, how do the different dimensions of career orientations, at various phases of professional preparation, impact experiences and development of professional profiles and pathways? The participants (n=308) in this study represent three different groups: (1) students in engineering technology related programs from a medium rural-serving technical college (n=136), (2) students in engineering technology related programs from a large urban-serving technical college (n=52), and (3) engineering students at a medium Research 1 university who have transferred from a two-year college (n=120). All participants completed Schein’s Career Anchor Inventory [5]. This instrument contains 40 six-point Likert-scale items with eight subscales which correlate to the eight different career anchors. Additional demographic questions were also included. The data analysis includes graphical displays for data visualization and exploration, descriptive statistics for summarizing trends in the sample data, and then inferential statistics for determining statistical significance. This analysis examines career anchor results across groups by institution, major, demographics, types of educational experiences, types of work experiences, and career influences. This cross-group analysis aids in the development of profiles of values, talents, abilities, and motives to support customized career development tailored specifically for ET students. These findings contribute research to a gap in ET and two-year college engineering education research. Practical implications include use of findings to create career pathways mapped to career anchors, integration of career development tools into two-year college curricula and programs, greater support for career counselors, and creation of alternate and more diverse pathways into engineering.
Words: 489
References [1] National Academy of Engineering. (2016). Engineering technology education in the United States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. [2] The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, (IPEDS). (2014). Data on engineering technology degrees. [3] Lent, R.W., & Brown, S.B. (1996). Social cognitive approach to career development: An overivew. Career Development Quarterly, 44, 310-321. [4] Unfried, A., Faber, M., Stanhope, D.S., Wiebe, E. (2015). The development and validation of a measure of student attitudes toward science, technology, engineeirng, and math (S-STEM). Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 33(7), 622-639. [5] Schein, E. (1996). Career anchors revisited: Implications for career development in the 21st century. Academy of Management Executive, 10(4), 80-88. [6] Schein, E.H., & Van Maanen, J. (2013). Career Anchors, 4th ed. San Francisco: Wiley.
more »
« less
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities for Specialized Curricula in Cyber Defense: Results from Interviews with Cyber Professionals
More specialized cybersecurity education programs are needed to address workforce needs, but it is unclear which knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) fulfil industry needs. We interviewed 48 professionals within four cyber defense specialty areas: (1) Cyber Network Defense Analysis, (2) Cyber Network Defense Infrastructure Support, (3) Incident Response, and (4) Vulnerability Assessment and Management. The professionals rated a number of specialized KSAs along two dimensions: how important the KSA was to their job and how difficult the KSA was to learn. Overall, communication and other non-technical skills were rated as being very important for all cyber defense jobs. Findings indicated that, for some specialty areas, technical knowledge and skills vary considerably between jobs and so the ability to teach oneself is more valuable than proficiency in any one KSA. Findings may be used to inform the development of general cybersecurity curricula, as well as curricula that focus on Cyber Network Defense Analysis, Cyber Network Defense Infrastructure Support, or Vulnerability Assessment and Management.
more »
« less
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10281814
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ACM Transactions on Computing Education
- Volume:
- 20
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1946-6226
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 25
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Games and competitions enhance student engagement and help improve hands-on learning of computing concepts. Focusing on targeted goals, competitions provide a sense of community and accomplishment among students, fostering peer-learning opportunities. Despite these benefits of motivating and enhancing student learning, the impact of competitions on curricular learning outcomes has not been sufficiently studied. For institutional or program accreditation, understanding the extent to which students achieve course or program learning outcomes is essential, and helps in establishing continuous improvement processes for the program curriculum. Utilizing the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC), a curricular assessment was conducted for an undergraduate cybersecurity program at a US institution. This archetypal competition was selected as it provides an effective platform for broader program learning outcomes, as students need to: (1) function in a team and communicate effectively (teamwork and communication skills); (2) articulate technical information to non-technical audiences (communication skills); (3) apply excellent technical and non-technical knowledge (design and analysis skills applied to problem-solving); and (4) function well under adversity (real-world problem-solving skills). Using data for both students who competed and who did not, student progress was tracked over five years. Preliminary analysis showed that these competitions made marginally-interested students become deeply engaged with the curriculum; broadened participation among women who became vital to team success by showcasing their technical and management skills; and pushed students to become self-driven, improving their academic performance and career placements. This experience report also reflects on what was learned and outlines the next steps for this work.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)While rural manufacturing job availability is growing throughout the country, rural communities often lack skilled workers. Thus, it is imperative for employers to validate needed new professional competencies by understanding which skills can be taught on-the-job as well as the knowledge and abilities best gained through classroom learning and experiential learning opportunities. This enhanced understanding not only benefits employers’ hiring practices, but also it can help Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs improve curricula and expand learning opportunities to best meet students’ and employers’ needs. In this study, we triangulated industry competency model content with rural employer perspectives on new advanced manufacturing (AM) professionals’ desired competencies (i.e., the level of skill sophistication in a particular AM work area). To extract competencies for entry-level AM rural jobs, we used a deductive approach with multiple methods. First, we used Natural Language Processing (NLP) to extract, analyze, and compare the U.S. Department of Labor’s AM 2010 and 2020 Competency Models because they reflect the levels and topics AM industry professionals nationally reported as technician needs. Then, we interviewed 10 rural AM employers in North Florida to capture their perceptions of the most important competencies for new middle-skill technicians. Interview transcripts were also processed using NLP to extract competency levels and topics; we compared this output to the AM Competency Model analysis results. We deduced that the most critical competencies identified by rural AM employers required direct classroom instruction, but there was a subset of skills obtainable through on-the-job training or other experiential learning. This study, with the goal of addressing employee shortages and increasing the number of technicians ready for the workforce, has implications for rural community colleges’ AM programs curricula and the role of experiential learning.more » « less
-
more » « less
Abstract Networks like those of healthcare infrastructure have been a primary target of cyberattacks for over a decade. From just a single cyberattack, a healthcare facility would expect to see millions of dollars in losses from legal fines, business interruption, and loss of revenue. As more medical devices become interconnected, more cyber vulnerabilities emerge, resulting in more potential exploitation that may disrupt patient care and give rise to catastrophic financial losses. In this paper, we propose a structural model of an aggregate loss distribution across multiple cyberattacks on a prototypical hospital network. Modeled as a mixed random graph, the hospital network consists of various patient‐monitoring devices and medical imaging equipment as random nodes to account for the variable occupancy of patient rooms and availability of imaging equipment that are connected by bidirectional edges to fixed hospital and radiological information systems. Our framework accounts for the documented cyber vulnerabilities of a hospital's trusted internal network of its major medical assets. To our knowledge, there exist no other models of an aggregate loss distribution for cyber risk in this setting. We contextualize the problem in the probabilistic graph‐theoretical framework using a percolation model and combinatorial techniques to compute the mean and variance of the loss distribution for a mixed random network with associated random costs that can be useful for healthcare administrators and cybersecurity professionals to improve cybersecurity management strategies. By characterizing this distribution, we allow for the further utility of pricing cyber risk.
-
The integration of cyber-physical systems (CPS) has been extremely advantageous to society, it merges the attention of cybersecurity for vehicles as a timely concern as a matter of public and individual. The failure of any vehicle system could have a serious impact on vehicle control and cause undesired consequences. With the growing demand for security in CPS, there are few hands-on labs/modules available for training current students, future engineers, or IT professionals to understand cybersecurity in CPS. This study describes the execution of a free security testbed to replicate a vehicle’s network system and the implementation of this testbed via hands-on lab designed to introduce concepts of vehicle control systems. The hands-on lab simulates insider threat scenarios where students had to use can-utils toolkits and SavvyCAN to send, modify, and capture the network packet and exploit the system vulnerability threats such as replay attacks and fuzzing attacks on the vehicle system. We conducted a case study with 21 university-level students, and all students completed the hands-on lab, pretest, posttest, and a satisfaction survey as part of a non-graded class assignment. The experimental results show that most students were not familiar with cyber-physical systems and vehicle control systems and never had the chance to do any hands-on lab in this field before. Furthermore, students reported that the hands-on lab helped them learn about CAN-bus and rated high scores for enjoyment. We discussed the design of an affordable tool to teach about vehicle control systems and proposed directions for future work.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3421254
