Professional industry certifications as the guiding factor for cybersecurity course content delivery

Other date: 2021. ; Abstract: Cybersecurity faculty do not have the time to respond to the rapid and pervasive cybersecurity academic landscape. For faculty to respond to this challenge, they are expected to continuously adapt to remain competitive. The purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to explore the cybersecurity faculty's perceptions of their need to embark on an ongoing and sustained professional development to transfer commercial content in the form of professional certifications to the course content delivery at the Opportunity Learning Center (referred to hereafter as O.L.C.) in South Florida. This study's methods aligned with a qualitative descriptive phenomenological process supported by Carroll's (1963) degree of learning based on the concepts of opportunity to learn, quality of instruction, perseverance, and aptitude. The data I collected via interview described faculty's perceptions regarding these concepts to learn a pervasively changing subject. Five participants at O.L.C. perceived professional certifications as beneficial. Most professional certifications are valuable; besides, Florida's state's Department of Education encourages state colleges to include them. The data revealed that despite the likelihood of obtaining a certification, increases in faculty receiving high-level instruction, learning experience, and quality of teaching resources, faculty face a significant challenge in preparing and getting ready to obtain professional certifications. Despite the challenge, the study showed that faculty have no other option but to leverage various open educational resources to remain competitive. The study recommends expanding research to determine the correlation between the absence of professional development in the cybersecurity academic context and faculty's motivation to self-train to remain competitive. ; by Victor Ramón Arenas. ; College of Education and Professional Studies ; Department of Instructional Design and Technology ; Dissertation (Ed.D.) University of West ...