Abstract:

In this conceptual paper, educational theory and pedagogical approaches are addressed for the development of cyber security education (CySE) in preservice teacher (PST) education programs. Cyber security (CyS) awareness has been identified as important focus of curricular development with young learners in the development of digital competence and self-efficacy (Lamond et al. 2022). To this end, the New York State Department of Education will begin to implement the computer science and digital fluency standards, that includes CyS in K-12 in 2023 (NYSED). Due to the rapid increase of CyS incidents in K-12 schools (Levin 2022), the need to educate students as well as teachers on CyS has been suggested (Dawson et al. 2022). While CySE can involve skill development with student who will go on to specialize in security measures, importantly, CySE is suggested to be crucial for all K-12 learners, in-service teachers, as well as PSTs (Nygard et al. 2018). With the increase use of digital platforms by young children, their lack of cyber awareness and management skills are scant and pose severe security risks (Edwards et al. 2018). Current trends indicate that young children are accessing digital platforms at very early ages that accelerate security risks through games and social media. Thus, children have to rely on parents and teachers for guidance and instruction on security procedures who might also lack the knowledge and skills on CyS (Lamond et al. 2022). Furthermore, with the advent of artificial intelligence and mass user digital platforms, there is an increased demand to educate students on managing and protecting personal data and potentially compromising information (Pangrazio & Cardozo Gaibisso, 2020).

As in-service teachers have been found to be severely lacking in cyber awareness and skills, there is a great need to train educators on CyS in order to better support and educate young leaners in digital environments (Childers et al. 2023; Rahman et al. 2020). Preparing PSTs to teach CyS is daunting due the already replete course work required in traditional PST programs (Dawson et al. 2022). PST CyS skill development might require substantial curricular rethinking and reframing. The scant research on PST CyS development and technological self-efficacy shows a tremendous need to develop digital knowledge and skill related to CyS (Karagozlu, 2020). Additionally, there is a need to examine educational theories for developing comprehensive pedagogical approaches in curricular development for PST CyS instruction (Taylor-Jackson et al. 2020).

In this paper presentation, the emerging literature on developing PST CyS is sytematically reviewed and analyzed for determining approaches and pedagogical principles in designing curricula and courses in PST programs. There is clear demand for cyber security education that will require effort beyond simple declarative knowledge of security principles to more robust acquisition of security skills for applying then in authentic digital threat environments. Theory and pedagogy is discussed on the potential use of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), game-based (GBL) and game-design learning (GDL) for PST CyS program development.

Keywords:

Cyber security, preservice teacher education, educational theory, pedagogy.