Abstract for HONS 01/21
Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Cybersecurity Chapter in the Computer Science Field Guide
Henry Hickman
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering
University of Canterbury
Abstract
In 2021, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) expanded achievement standard 91898, allowing students to be assessed on cybersecurity. As a result, the computer science field guide (CSFG) introduced a new chapter covering cybersecurity. This report details how the interactive activities of the new cybersecurity chapter were developed, and examines how effective the new CSFG chapter is as a teaching tool. We found that teachers were generally positive about both the new chapter and the interactives related to them. They found our interactive about firewalls to be an engaging game that encouraged students to continually replay it. They also believed our password brute force attack interactive was an important tool for children to have access to. A common criticism was the password dictionary interactive, with the dictionary missing some common passwords. Overall, the interviews with teachers led me to the conclusion that the new CSFG chapter will be an effective tool for teaching cybersecurity concepts to students.
