Enhancing student learning in cybersecurity education using an out-of-class learning approach

Abstract

Aim/Purpose In this study, the researchers investigated whether the out-of-class learning ap-proach could help the students to attain any valuable learning outcomes for cy-bersecurity learning and could enhance the perceived value of cybersecurity education among the students. Background Cybersecurity learning poses challenges for its students to learn a complicated subject matter and the students may be intimidated by the challenging courses in cybersecurity programs. Therefore, it is essential for the faculty members to devise some mechanisms to promote cybersecurity learning to increase its stu-dent retention. The mechanism suggested by this study was the out-of-class learning approach. Methodology The researchers in this study employed a content analysis and adopted a semiot-ic method to analyze qualitative data. The researchers also conducted crosstabu-lation analyses using chi-square tests to detect the significant differences in the emerging learning outcomes from the two different out-of-class learning activi-ties investigated in this study. Contribution This study addressed the difficulty of cybersecurity education and proposed a viable mechanism to promote the student learning in such a complicated subject matter. Findings For cybersecurity education, the out-of-class learning approach is a viable peda-gogical mechanism that could lead the students to several learning outcomes, including connecting them to the real-life scenarios related to the cybersecurity profession, guiding them to their career choices and development, stimulating their intellectual growth, creating their justification of learning, and raising their cybersecurity awareness. Recommendations for Practitioners The instructors of any cybersecurity programs should incorporate some out-of-class learning activities into the courses in their programs, especially the intro-ductory-level courses. Additionally, it is important to coordinate the out-of-class learning activities with the in-class lessons to enable the students to justify what they have learned in their classrooms and motivate them to learn more. Recommendation for Researchers Researchers could look beyond in-class learning and laboratory learning to in-vestigate the impacts of out-of-class learning activities on cybersecurity educa-tion to help the students to attain better learning outcomes. Impact on Society By promoting cybersecurity education, universities and colleges could attain a higher retention rate of the students in their cybersecurity programs. The higher retention rate of the students in cybersecurity programs would help to ease the critical shortage of cybersecurity talent. Future Research Future research could explore the impacts of other out-of-class learning activi-ties on cybersecurity learning; for example: job shadowing, attending cybersecu-rity conferences, internship, developing cybersecurity systems or tools for actual customers, working on cybersecurity research with faculty members. Additional-ly, future studies could investigate the effects of the out-of-class learning ap-proach on promoting other academic programs that are characterized by in-tensely complex and technical nature, similar to cybersecurity programs.