2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

ABSTRACT

Because cybersecurity professionals are crucial to increased and continuing national security, public safety, and economic prosperity, employment opportunities in cybersecurity continue to increase. To meet the public and private sectors’ need for cybersecurity professionals, universities are adding academic programs in Cybersecurity. One large, mid-Atlantic, land-grant R1 University with a vibrant cybersecurity program that offers a B.S. degree, academic minor, and an Area of Emphasis in Cybersecurity has received an NSF S-STEM grant to increase the number and diversity of highly qualified cybersecurity graduates by offering scholarships to high-achieving and economically challenged undergraduate students.

Past research has focused on grit and motivation of the NSF S-STEM scholars from this initiative, their retention and persistence through their educational program, and what elements of the S-STEM program they found most helpful in supporting their development as cybersecurity professionals [1].

This research explores evidence of cybersecurity students’ feelings of inclusion or sense of belonging within their major. Because many of the benefits of the NSF S-STEM program are available to all cybersecurity professionals, we will consider the level of engagement of all cybersecurity students and the effect of that engagement on an indication of their sense of belonging. This research is important because sense of belonging is one characteristic that has been linked with increased retention [2] – and lack of sense of belonging has been linked with attrition – within many STEM majors, which struggle to serve a student body that is as diverse as the broader population of college-age people in the U.S. [3].

References
[1] Paper presented at the2022 ASEE Annual Conference at the 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN.

[2] Sophia Krause-Levy, William G. Griswold, Leo Porter, and Christine Alvarado. 2021. The Relationship Between Sense of Belonging and Student Outcomes in CS1 and Beyond. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER 2021), August 16–19, 2021, Virtual Event, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA 13 Pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469748

[3] The STEM Labor Force of Today: Scientists, Engineers, and Skilled Technical Workers. National Science Foundation and National Science Board, Science & Engineering Indicators. August 2021. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20212/participation-of-demographic-groups-in-stem. Accessed 11.16..2022.