Integrating Soft Skills with Technical Skills to Produce Next-Generation Cybersecurity Technicians

This project aims to serve the national interest by producing more qualified technicians to meet workforce demands in cybersecurity. Keeping computers and information systems secure is a critical need and a major challenge in business, industry, and government. The growth of cyber-threats has created a need for many more workers who have the knowledge and skills to protect both existing and emerging technologies. Research and feedback from employers indicate that although graduates of cybersecurity programs are generally well-prepared technically, their soft skills remain underdeveloped. (This issue was exacerbated by primarily virtual interactions and remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.) To address this gap, the investigators intend to integrate the targeted development of soft skills into core cybersecurity courses through structured team-based activities, simulations, and competition-style challenges.

The project will focus on five competencies that cybersecurity professionals need in the workplace: communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, continuous learning, and attention to detail. The Business & Industry Leadership Team (BILT) that advises the college's cybersecurity program prioritized these soft skills for attention. The project team will directly embed them into course activities, assignments, and assessments. Specifically, the investigators aim to revise four existing cybersecurity courses -- Introduction to Cyber Crime, Introduction to Protocol Analysis, Security Administration, and Ethical Hacking with Python I -- to include mini-modules and challenge-based team assignments focusing on soft skills. Each course will focus on one or two of the five targeted soft skills, ensuring that each one is addressed in-depth within a technical context. Examples include group-based incident response briefings to strengthen communication and professionalism; packet analysis and network troubleshooting activities completed in teams to promote teamwork and problem-solving; and adaptive policy response scenarios that encourage flexibility and resilience. Each course will include clear learning outcomes, soft skill rubrics, and feedback mechanisms to assess both technical and interpersonal development. In addition, the investigators aim to establish a student cybersecurity competition team as a co-curricular activity and to bring elements of cyber-competition into the classroom for all students. Those activities will include in-class simulations modeled on capture-the-flag or red team/blue team competitions; structured team challenges with rotating roles to develop communication and adaptability; and opportunities for reflection and instructor feedback following simulations or live drills. By embedding a focused set of soft skills into core technical coursework and grounding students' experience in competition-style, gamified team activities, the redesigned cybersecurity program will provide a coherent, high-impact approach to cybersecurity education that aligns with workforce needs and promotes student success.