Build-It, Break-It, Fix-It: Understanding Student Experiences and Processes Implementing Computer Security

• In Event: Student Engagement and Cognitive Processes in Engineering and Computing Education

Abstract

Computer security is a core topic in the computer sciences that is often pushed aside in relation to other topics in undergraduate education despite its real-world impact. While no one explicitly admits that security is irrelevant, we still do not have a good understanding of how to incorporate computer security across the curriculum and the processes behind how students think and learn when implementing computer security. In our research, we apply a constructivist framework, one of the first or few to do so for this problem. We use an adaptation of the Build-It, Break-It, Fix-It competition combined qualitative methods to accomplish this.

Authors

• Michelle Jensen, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Matthew Berland, University of Wisconsin - Madison