Education DCL: EAGER: Exploring New Pathways into Cybersecurity Careers for Rural English Learners through XR-enabled Educational Methods

Defending against cybersecurity attacks requires a well-trained cybersecurity workforce. Yet, worker shortages are increasingly threatening U.S. security and industrial growth. A potential untapped resource to help fill this shortage is the 38% of high school students who do not attend a four-year university after graduation. Many of these students, often from underserved populations, aspire to higher-skilled careers and postsecondary education, but they struggle to overcome barriers that limit their participation. This project uses Extended Reality (XR) technologies to encourage rural English Learner (EL) students to consider cybersecurity careers. An interdisciplinary team from Iowa State University leads the project in collaboration with partners in Storm Lake, Iowa, a growing rural meatpacking town with a large migrant and refugee population. The project's novelties are designing XR resource prototypes for EL students and evaluating their potential to increase students' interest in cybersecurity. The project's broader significance and importance are to assist EL students in training for higher-skilled, better-paid jobs that can improve conditions for their households and to bring more women and people from underserved communities into cybersecurity. This project considers rural EL students an untapped segment of the future workforce with significant potential to enter the cybersecurity field through postsecondary pathways such as certificates and associate degrees. Inspired by gaps in research on student transitions from high school into postsecondary education, this project encourages EL students to consider a cybersecurity career by increasing their interest and knowledge of the field. The project hypothesis is that using immersive and interactive XR technologies will significantly improve EL students' engagement and motivation with cybersecurity topics, which research shows are essential factors in choosing a career. The project goals are to: 1. Develop prototypes of co-designed XR-enabled educational resources. 2.Assess if these resources show promise with EL students. 3. Analyze project findings to guide future research. 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.