Development of a serious gaming approach for cyber aptitude assessment

ABSTRACT

Numerous traditional assessments have been developed to determine suitability of US military recruits for cyber careers. Cyber career field managers expressed a concern there may be well-qualified candidates that lack cyber knowledge, and therefore are not identified with knowledge-based tests. Technological advances such as serious gaming may provide opportunities to assess constructs traditional methods do not effectively measure. The purpose of this effort was to identify potential gains in validity that could be achieved beyond traditional methods through the use of serious games for several cyber jobs (both for enlisted and officer positions). Throughout this phase of research, an extensive literature review of military and civilian assessments targeted cyber occupations. Then, military subject matter experts in these career fields provided input and guidance (e.g., focus on aptitudes and traits as knowledge and skill are rapidly outdated). A gap analysis between all measures of such constructs identified a short list of candidates for measurement in a serious game. A survey of 800 airmen in the 1N4X1A, 3D1X2 and 17DEX/SX career fields was conducted; 290 respondents identified six constructs to be the focus for serious game assessment. The game was developed, and constructs validated on a sample chosen to model Air Force enlisted recruits. Additional psychometric data from enlistees and cyber trainees will be gathered once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyber aptitude
• serious games
• personnel measurement

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The terms traits, personality factors/facets, and work styles are used interchangeably throughout this paper, while aptitude is used interchangeably with ability. These terms are collectively referred to as constructs.

2. The concept and prototype for the serious game was determined, and game development began, approximately one year prior to the identification of COVID-19 in China and the resulting world-wide pandemic.