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For an overview of the CATS Project see:

• • Experiences and Lessons Learned Creating and Validating Concept Inventories for Cybersecurity (2020)

Our first step was to identify the core concepts of cybersecurity through a Delphi Process:

• • Identifying Core Concepts of Cybersecurity: Results of Two Delphi Processes (2018)

We then developed scenarios and interviewed students to uncover their misconceptions:

• • Student Misconceptions about Cybersecurity Concepts: Analysis of Think-Aloud Interviews (2018)
  • How students reason about cybersecurity concepts (2016) [A preliminary conference paper about our interviews.]

We selected six of our favorite scenarios to create educational case studies, which offer an engaging authentic way to learn cybersecurity concepts:

• • Cybersecurity: Exploring core concepts through six scenarios (2017)

We held a Hackathon to create and refine test items.  We also explored using Crowd-sourcing to generate distractors.  The following papers (and the overview experience paper) give insight into how we created test items:

• • The CATS Hackathon: Creating and Refining Test Items for Cybersecurity Concept Inventories (2019)
  • Investigating Crowdsourcing to Generate Distractors for Multiple-Choice Assessments (2019)
  • Creating a cybersecurity concept inventory: A status report on the CATS Project (2017)

We validated the CCI using expert review, pilot testing, and psychometric analysis:

• • Psychometric Evaluation of the Cybersecurity Concept Inventory (2021)
  • Initial validation of the Cybersecurity Concept Inventory: Pilot testing and expert review’ (2019) [An initial conference paper on the validation of the CCI]