Work in Progress: Comparison of 'boot camp' and traditional academic course delivery for cybersecurity education

Abstract

The need for quality cybersecurity education is growing rapidly due to a significant level of current unfilled demand, which is growing rapidly, for cybersecurity professionals [1]. This demand was created and is driven by the ever-increasing rate of technology implementation in mission-critical roles throughout industry, governments, and society. Due, in part, to this need and for a variety of other reasons, numerous non-collegiate cybersecurity offerings have been launched [2]. Many of these programs promise to offer the education and career prospects of a 2-year or 4-year degree in a matter of weeks or months. While the focus is somewhat different and these programs do not offer the well-rounded background of a collegiate degree, they do raise a question of the comparative efficacy of different approaches for providing cybersecurity instruction. This work seeks to answer the question of how educators can best meet the growing demand for cybersecurity professionals. It compares the learning outcomes of a cybersecurity course offered in a traditional three credit hour classroom lecture setting over one academic semester to an immersive 80-hour workshop environment offered as two 40-hour weeks of instruction, lab work and facilitated assignments. The paper describes the study which includes comparative assessment of students in both environments. The work considers both the outcomes achieved and student satisfaction with the learning process. The study includes pre- and post-tests for both formats. Also, students in both environments are surveyed before and after the cybersecurity education experience to evaluate students' perceptions of the education environment's impact on their performance. The results are compared between the two groups. Initial efforts of this work are presented and topics for ongoing and prospective future work are discussed.