Women in IT Brainstorming:
Three Observations from GenCyber

Matt Hale

Associate Professor of Cybersecurity

Tweet @mlhale_

slides.com/matthale/wit22/

Father, Dog Father, Husband, Software Engineer, STEM Evangelist, Researcher, Teacher, Web Developer, Board Gamer, Philosopher, Artist

(roughly in that order)

Tweet @mlhale_

A little about me...

slides.com/matthale/wit22/

Three Observations from
Seven yrs of GenCyber

(AKA WHY I'M HERE TO GET THE CONVERSATION STARTED)

slides.com/matthale/wit22/

OBs1: Goals/Motivation Matter

slides.com/matthale/wit22/

Student SafetY

and Privacy

My CYBeR k-12

Outreach goals

CYBERCrime PRevention

Great Career Opportunities

AWareness

Career Preparation

GAP: 769,000 UNFilled Jobs in CYBER
(up >300k in past 5 years) **

GAP: 10% year-over-year increase in attacks targeting young people
<25 Age group is #1 most vulnerable Population*

* Cybercrime report finds young adults and adults over 75 most vulnerable to fraud attacks. Security Magazine, BNP Media, 2021.

** National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), Cyberseek.org

*** Panhans, D. et. al. Empowering Women to Work in Cybersecurity Is a Win-Win, Global Cybersecurity Forum, BCG Research, 2022.

GAP: Women are significantly Underrepresented in CYBR (25% in 2021)***

Student SafetY

and Privacy

My CYBeR k-12

Outreach goals

CYBERCrime PRevention

Great Career Opportunities

Needs to "stick" and be practical / Audience Appropriate

Needs to be interesting

AWareness

Career Preparation

OBs2: Building Interest

Suzanne Hidi & K. Ann Renninger (2006) The Four-Phase Model of Interest Development, Educational Psychologist, 41:2, 111-127.

Clickable paper link: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_4

slides.com/matthale/wit22/

1. Interest is a critical Motivator

It mediates...

Attention - what people pay attention to, when, and for how long.
Levels of learning and achievement.
Effort.
Goals.

2. Interest has both Affective (caring/valuing) and Cognitive (knowing/doing) components

-> They interact and change over time

3. Interest can be Individual or situational

4. We can scaffold and develop situational interest into Individual interest

Triggered

Situational

Interest

Maintained

Situational

Interest

Emerging

Individual

Interest

Well-developed

Individual

Interest

The four phases of the Hidi & Renninger model

For Instance

1. I may have triggered your situational interest in interest development because I told you it connects to something you do care about (Women in STEM)

2. We might maintain that, by following up later after this meeting to share some situationally interesting articles about interest development.

3. You might start to develop individual interest in interest theory because you see its efficacy. You might seek out more resources on your own to learn more.

4. You might give this same talk sometime in the future to others

(Thanks to Melissa Dark @ Purdue for triggering my interest in interest)

GenCyber Data on Triggering and Sustaining Interest

1. Triggered Situational Interest doesn't always materialize into Individual interest

2. Learning Environments shown to trigger the most interest include

group work,
puzzles/challenges, and
highly relevant content to lived experiences

3. Activities that help maintain situational interest Include:

cooperative group work
one-on-one tutoring
project-based learning

-> continued relevance to the learner is also key

4. Instructional Conditions can amplify emerging individual interests, but they can also hinder them

Ex. How many times have you had a teacher use coded 'in' language that only speaks to part of their audience?

A little of Our Data as an Example

slides.com/matthale/wit22/

2019-2022 Data

(all girls, n=118)

(2019 national avg, all genders, n=3035)

2019-2022 Data

(all girls, n=118)

our data takeaway -> our camps serve the intended audience (no or little situational interest) and [at worst] dont hinder more advanced participants (with individual interest)