TY - GEN
T1 - How students reason about Cybersecurity concepts
AU - Scheponik, Travis
AU - Sherman, Alan T.
AU - DeLatte, David
AU - Phatak, Dhananjay
AU - Oliva, Linda
AU - Thompson, Julia
AU - Herman, Geoffrey L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Defense under CAE-R grants H98230-15-10294 and H98230-15-1-0273 and by the National Science Foundation under SFS grant 1241576.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2016/11/28
Y1 - 2016/11/28
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Cognitive interviews
KW - Cybersecurity
KW - Cybersecurity Assessment Tools (CATS)
KW - Misconceptions
KW - Thematic analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85006785023&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1109/FIE.2016.7757363
DO - 10.1109/FIE.2016.7757363
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85006785023
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
BT - FIE 2016 - Frontiers in Education 2016
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 46th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2016
Y2 - 12 October 2016 through 15 October 2016
ER -