SaTC-EDU: EAGER Enhancing Cybersecurity Education Through a Representational Fluency Model

网络安全专家必须具备几种能力：深厚的技术技能，识别和应对复杂和紧急行为的能力，掌握使用抽象和原则的能力，评估风险和处理不确定性的能力，解决问题和推理能力，以及对抗性思维的能力。本研究将以认知理论为基础，探讨模型启发活动对培养学生认知和应对复杂和突发行为的能力，以及如何处理不确定性和模糊性的有效性。该项目扩展了表征流畅性理论，该理论已被证明是一个强大的工具，可以有效地将科学和数学领域的复杂概念教授到网络安全领域。 该项目的研究结果将揭示表征流畅性如何塑造认知图式并培养网络安全思维模式。本研究的目的是：1）开发一种启发式的教育活动模式，通过使用多种表征来教授网络安全相关概念，2）调查学生对这些概念的表征流畅性和图式，3）调查学生图式发展与认知加工和控制变化的关系。 虽然这项教育研究的背景将是网络安全，学生将处于本科阶段，但通过这项研究建立的理论和框架应与网络安全的其他知识领域相关，并适用于不同环境中的不同层次的学生和专业人员，包括大学课堂或成人继续教育。

Cybersecurity experts must possess several abilities: deep technical skills, the capability to recognize and respond to complex and emergent behavior, mastery of using abstractions and principles, the ability to assess risk and handle uncertainty, problem-solving and reasoning skills, and facility in adversarial thinking. Based on cognitive theory, this project will investigate the efficacy of model eliciting activities for developing students' ability to recognize and respond to complex and emergent behavior, and how to handle uncertainty and ambiguity. This project extends the theory of representational fluency, which has been proven to be a powerful tool to effectively teach complex concepts in the field of Science and Mathematics to the cybersecurity domain. The findings from this project will shed light on how representational fluency can shape the cognitive schema and cultivate the cybersecurity mindset. The goals of this project are to: 1) develop model eliciting educational activities that teach network security related concepts using and translating among multiple representations, 2) investigate students' representational fluency and schema of these concepts, and 3) investigate the relationship of students' development of schema and changes in their cognitive processing and control. While the context for this educational research will be network security and the students will be at the undergraduate level, the theory and framework built through this research should be relevant to other knowledge areas in cybersecurity and applicable to different levels of students and professionals in different settings including university classroom or adult continuous education.