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Abstract Background Engineers are often expected to span organizational, cultural, stakeholder, geographic, temporal, and other boundaries. Yet, few studies on boundary spanning have appeared in the engineering education literature, suggesting the need for improved theoretical and conceptual foundations to guide empirical studies of boundary spanning in engineering.
Purpose To develop a more comprehensive understanding of boundary spanning, this study addresses five research questions: (a) What types of boundaries have been identified as topics of interest? (b) How are boundary spanners and boundary spanning defined? (c) What types of activities and behaviors comprise or have been linked to boundary spanning? (d) What individual competencies and characteristics have been proposed or studied as important for boundary spanning? and (e) What boundary spanning themes are most prominent in studies of engineers and other technical professionals?
Scope/Method Using a qualitative systematic review process, we identified and analyzed 72 scholarly papers from multiple disciplines. Multiple reviewers coded each paper using a hybrid deductive‐inductive content analysis process to identify key themes related to boundary spanning.
Conclusions The analysis resulted in a framework consisting of six boundary types, three types of roles and definitions, and five types of activities. Discussion of boundary spanning competencies was limited in the collected works, and only seven papers exclusively focused on engineers. We conclude by proposing boundary spanning as an important meta‐attribute for engineers and a promising lens for investigating engineering practice. We also relate our findings to the engineering education literature and suggest directions for future research.
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Despite the documented need to train and educate more cybersecurity professionals, we have little rigorous evidence to inform educators on effective ways to engage, educate, or retain cybersecurity students. To begin addressing this gap in our knowledge, we are conducting a series of think-aloud interviews with cybersecurity students to study how students reason about core cybersecurity concepts. We have recruited these students from three diverse institutions: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Prince George’s Community College, and Bowie State University. During these interviews, students grapple with security scenarios designed to probe student understanding of cybersecurity, especially adversarial thinking. We are analyzing student statements using a structured qualitative method, novice-led paired thematic analysis, to document student misconceptions and problematic reasonings. We intend to use these findings to develop Cybersecurity Assessment Tools that can help us assess the effectiveness of pedagogies. These findings can also inform the development of curricula, learning exercises, and other educational materials and policies.more » « less
