K-12 educators’ self-confidence in designing and implementing cybersecurity lessons

Abstract

Cybersecurity awareness and education initiatives are being designed and expanded for the workforce and K-20 education institutions. Predominately, K-12 cybersecurity education programs and research have focused on student learning experiences; however, there is a need to also concentrate cybersecurity education resources on K-12 teacher professional development. Teacher professional development supporting self-confidence in knowledge building and modeling of instructional practices may positively influence K-12 teachers’ integration of cybersecurity concepts within classroom instruction. This study documented K-12 teachers’ (n=17) perceived self-confidence in designing and implementing cybersecurity-related lessons when participating in a week-long cybersecurity education workshop experience funded by the National Security Agency's GenCyber grant program called the AGENT Initiative (Advancing GenCyber Education for North Georgia Teachers). Teachers were asked to rate their perceived self-confidence (pre and post) related to cybersecurity lesson development. Results showed that all self-confidence survey items increased after engaging in the GenCyber workshop; however, two items focused on creating engaging, inquiry-based lessons were not significant at the alpha value level of 0.003. These findings suggest that effective professional development aimed to increase K-12 teachers’ cybersecurity knowledge and to support development and implementation of cybersecurity-related lesson plans is an important factor in advocating for cybersecurity education efforts in K-12 education.

Keywords

• Adult learning
• Teacher professional development
• Cybersecurity