Scholarships and Supports for Self-Efficacy Development and Career Launching to Increase Undergraduate Degree Attainment in Cybersecurity

该项目将通过支持大都会州立大学（Metropolitan State University）表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为全国对受过良好教育的网络安全专业人员的需求做出贡献。这所大学是一所四年制的亚裔美国人和美洲原住民太平洋岛民服务机构。在为期五年的时间里，该项目将为30名攻读网络安全学士学位的本科生和转学生提供长达两年的奖学金支持。每年将分三批选出这些学者。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与有效的支持活动联系起来，提高学生对网络安全的坚持，包括指导、基于队列的行业相关认证培训、最先进的网络安全模拟器的强化培训，以及奖学金支持结束后的结构化职业启动工作经验。指导/咨询将包括教师导师、学生导师和专业顾问，重点是提供相关和及时的指导，以促进学者的学术和职业成功。指导/建议主题的例子包括成功的大学生行为，在过渡点或学术/个人挑战时期对学者的情感支持，认证课程中的支持活动，以及对未来职业道路的思考，包括介绍专业人士进行工作跟踪。由于大都会州立大学有大量未被充分代表的学生，该项目有可能扩大网络安全领域的参与，并提高有关如何支持网络安全学生群体的保留和毕业的知识。该项目的总体目标是提高具有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的网络安全学位完成率。该项目旨在研究密集的课外支持和以职业为中心的期望如何影响学者的入学强度（即与同龄人相比，每年注册更多学分）和自我效能感等结果。从社会认知职业理论出发，该项目将测试并贡献大量的文献，以明确地将自我效能感和结果预期作为个人职业选择行动的驱动因素的课外支持是否有效地提高了低收入、有学术天赋的学生在技术丰富的领域的坚持和完成学位。该项目旨在确定申请和完成网络安全计划的障碍和推动因素。该项目有可能产生关于奖学金和入学强度在低收入学术天才学生中的作用的新知识，其总体目标是了解促进或阻碍网络安全学位获得的因素。该项目将根据来自学习和教学事件、访谈、调查和焦点小组的工件，使用适当的工具来锚定证据三角测量过程。该项目的结果将通过机构网站、在当地会议、明尼苏达州系统合作会议、区域和国家科学教育会议（例如，计算机科学教育特别兴趣小组或SIGCSE）上的演讲以及在同行评审期刊上发表的文章进行传播。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated cybersecurity professionals by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Metropolitan State University. This University is a four-year Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide up to two years of scholarship support to 30 undergraduate juniors and transfer students who are pursuing a bachelor's degree in cybersecurity. The Scholars will be selected in three annual cohorts. The project aims to increase student persistence in cybersecurity by linking scholarships with effective support activities, including mentoring, cohort-based industry-relevant certification training, intensive training on a state-of-the-art cybersecurity emulator, and a structured career-launching work experience after the scholarship support ends. Mentoring/advising will include faculty mentors, student mentors, and professional advisors, with a focus on providing relevant and timely guidance that will advance Scholars’ academic and career success. Examples of mentoring/advising topics include successful college student behaviors, emotional support for Scholars during transition points or times of academic/personal challenges, support activities within certification courses, and reflections on future career pathways including introductions to professionals for job shadowing. Because Metropolitan State University has a high population of underrepresented students, this project has the potential to broaden participation in the cybersecurity field and to advance knowledge about how to support retention and graduation of this student population in cybersecurity.The overall goal of this project is to increase cybersecurity degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project aims to study how outcomes such as Scholars' enrollment intensity (i.e., enrolling in a higher number of credits per year compared to peers) and self-efficacy are impacted by intensive co-curricular support and career-focused expectations. Drawing from Social Cognitive Career Theory, this project will test and contribute to the body of literature on whether co-curricular supports that explicitly target self-efficacy and outcome expectancy as drivers of personal career choice actions are effective at increasing persistence and degree completion for low-income, academically talented students in technology-rich fields. The project aims to identify the barriers and enablers for applying to and completing the cybersecurity program. This project has the potential to generate new knowledge about the role of scholarships and enrollment intensity among low-income academically talented students with the overarching goal of understanding the factors that enable or impede cybersecurity degree attainment. The project will be evaluated using appropriate instruments to anchor the evidence triangulation process, based on artifacts from learning and teaching episodes, interviews, surveys, and focus groups. The results of this project will be disseminated through the institution website, presentations at local conferences, Minnesota State System collaboration meetings, regional and national science education conferences (e.g., Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education or SIGCSE), and articles published in peer-reviewed journals. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.