| NSF Org: |
EES Div. of Equity for Excellence in STEM |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 7, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 4, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 1832433 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Elsa Gonzalez
EES Div. of Equity for Excellence in STEM EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $249,948.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $290,235.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2020 = $40,287.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1 UNIVERSITY WAY SAN ANTONIO TX US 78224-3134 (210)784-1170 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
TX US 78224-3134 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | HSI-Hispanic Serving Instituti |
| Primary Program Source: |
04002021DB NSF Education & Human Resource |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. This project at Texas A&M University-San Antonio will advance the aims of the HSI Program by increasing the retention and completion rates of students in computer science and to better equip them to achieve careers cyber security. The project also plans to increase the number of transfer of students who transfer from two-year colleges into computer science programs at the University. The project plans to integrate cyber security topics throughout the entire computer science curriculum, so that students will obtain an NSA Cyber Defense Education certificate upon graduation. This certification can increase the competitiveness of the graduates in high-demand jobs.
The objectives of this program are to broaden and strengthen the pipeline of students, including Hispanic students, entering the field of computing and cyber security. To meet workforce demands, the project will develop a computer science undergraduate computer science program in which cyber security topics are integrated throughout the curriculum. The project also seeks to increase the retention rates and strengthen the marketability of students by enabling student to automatically earn a certificate in cyber security education upon graduation. Computer science researchers will collaborate with curriculum and instruction researchers to develop cyber security modules for use throughout the computer science curriculum. These modules will contextualize computing topics via a cyber security lens. To assist in the retention of students, the cyber security modules will use Model Eliciting Activities, a teaching and learning methodology that has been demonstrated to be particularly effective for women and other groups that are underrepresented in engineering. The project includes a partnership between the team of computing and education researchers at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and the computing departments of rural Laredo Community College and urban San Antonio College, both of which are Hispanic-serving community colleges. The community college partnerships will increase opportunities for student transfer, while the curriculum changes and use of inclusive pedagogy should increase the likelihood that students persist and graduate with degrees in computing that can enable them to launch careers within computing fields. Through a design experiment methodology, the project will investigate the impact of Model Eliciting Activities and the incorporation of cyber security on instructor effectiveness and student attitudes and performance. This research results could inform the practices of other computer science and related programs that seek to increase student success and diversity in computing programs.
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.
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The innovative components of this project are (a) the incorporation of an engaging, culturally relevant educational model called Model Eliciting Activities (MEA), for teaching cybersecurity concepts in foundational computer science courses taught at community colleges and four-year programs, and (b) giving the students an edge in the job market by incorporating the cybersecurity certificate requirements as part of their undergraduate curriculum.
The cybersecurity modules were developed as part of a National Security Agency grant, but MEA activities were incorporated into those modules for this project with the objective of increasing the participation of students, including women. Toward this, the project team developed the MEA projects and trained instructors including those from the two partnered community colleges through summer workshops. By incorporating MEAs, cybersecurity concepts were taught in the existing several computing courses at three HSIs: Texas A&M University-San Antonio (A&M-SA), San Antonio College (SAC), and Laredo College (LC). The involving courses include freshman-level CS1 (Programming Fundamentals I) and CS2 (Programming Fundamentals II) at A&M-SA, SAC, and LC, and upper-level Software Engineering I (SWI) and Software Engineering II (SWII) at A&M-SA.
To strengthen student marketability, the NSA Cyber Defense Education Certificate (CDE) courses are included as part of the various computing curricula at A&M-SA. Students graduating with computing degrees can take the NSA certificate courses, and upon graduation, receive the CDE Certificate along with their degree. Other strategies to facilitate this effort was to dispel commonly held myths of women in computing by using female leaders in local and regional cybersecurity organizations as role models, to speak to the students about their careers. Also, female students were provided opportunities to go to regional and national conferences.
Overall, the project made an impact on traditionally underrepresented Hispanic students in the computing and cybersecurity in three institutions that are located in underserved regions of south Texas. The key outcomes of the project include:
1) The integration of securitymodules with the developed MEA projects into Computer Science courses at three institutions has made an impact, reaching approximately 570 students across multiple sections of CS1 and CS2 at A&M-SA, SAC, and LC as well as SWI and SWII at A&M-SA.
2) Through the training sessions for instructors on the utilization of security modules with MEA projects, a total of 12 stakeholders (5 at A&M-SA, 3 at SAC and 4 at LC) participated in workshops, including two chairs of computing departments at SAC and LC. The trained instructors successfully integrated the security modules into respective courses.
3) The number of students who have been awarded the NSA CDE Certificate has been increasing each year for the last four years (Spring 2019–Summer 2023). A total of 155 Certificates were earned by the students in various computing programs: 4 in 2019, 29 in 2020, 50 in 2021, 46 in 2022, and 41 in 2023.
4) With the support of this grant, approximately 20 female students attended the Women in Cyber Scurity national conference in 2019, 2021, and 2022. They had an enlightening experience engaging in workshops and presentations and valuable networking opportunities with students from other universities and professionals from tech industries and government agencies.
5) Student group solutions and their implementation results for cipher algorithms from MEA projects and analysis results of research questions - creative cipher algorithms, student's great understanding of cyber security concepts. The assessment research study shows that the implementations of security modules with MEA projects enhanced student’s attitudes and interest toward learning in computer science and cybersecurity concepts. The study also indicates that the instructors’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and assessment shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered, during their experience with the cybersecurity modules and MEAs.
The project goal is to increase the retention and transfer from two-year to four-year institutions of Hispanic and Hispanic females in computing and cybersecurity. The study examined the impact of the program model to determine if each element of the program may increase the retention and transfer from two-year to four-year institutions of Hispanic and Hispanic females in computing and cybersecurity programs. There was an increase in enrollment in computing programs at A&M-SA over the five years (Fall 2018-Summer 2023). However, the total number of students who transferred to the university decreased over time as did the number of female transfers. The total number of Hispanic students in computing programs at baseline and the five-year figures show a loss in Hispanic enrollment of -2.89%. However, there was a slight increase in Hispanic female enrollment (+.35%) from baseline to five-year. It is worth noting that the overall data might be infuende by the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment in computing programs at each institution (A&M-SA, SAC, and LC) either remained consistent or increased over time as did graduation rates. However, it is not possible to specifically attribute this retention to the inclusion of cybersecurity modules or the inclusion of MEAs.
Last Modified: 11/29/2023
Modified by: Jeong Yang
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