Nikol Rummel’s research while affiliated with Ruhr University Bochum and other places

The increasing importance of supply chain security for digital devices -- from consumer electronics to critical infrastructure -- has created a high demand for skilled cybersecurity experts. These experts use Hardware Reverse Engineering (HRE) as a crucial technique to ensure trust in digital semiconductors. Recently, the US and EU have provided substantial funding to educate this cybersecurity-ready semiconductor workforce, but success depends on the widespread availability of academic training programs. In this paper, we investigate the current state of education in hardware security and HRE to identify efficient approaches for establishing effective HRE training programs. Through a systematic literature review, we uncover 13 relevant courses, including eight with accompanying academic publications. We identify common topics, threat models, key pedagogical features, and course evaluation methods. We find that most hardware security courses do not prioritize HRE, making HRE training scarce. While the predominant course structure of lectures paired with hands-on projects appears to be largely effective, we observe a lack of standardized evaluation methods and limited reliability of student self-assessment surveys. Our results suggest several possible improvements to HRE education and offer recommendations for developing new training courses. We advocate for the integration of HRE education into curriculum guidelines to meet the growing societal and industry demand for HRE experts.

Background With the increasing availability of immersive technologies such as 360° videos for educational purposes, research needs to shift from media comparison studies to value‐added studies in order to identify conditions for effective learning with such technologies. For the educational use of history‐related virtual reality media, which are characterized by immersion and emotionalization, instructional approaches that promote cognitive and critical rather than emotional processing of the content are required. Objectives Drawing on research on self‐regulated learning, emotion regulation, and collaborative learning, the present value‐added study examines whether (1) strategy training in cognitive and emotion regulation strategies and (2) collaboration can enhance students' cognitive processing of history‐related 360° videos. Methods In a quasi‐experimental study with school students (N = 157), we compared the effects of training addressing cognitive and emotion regulation strategies with training focusing on cognitive strategies alone. Before and during each of the two types of training, students were asked to either collaboratively or individually analyse a history‐related 360° video. Results and Conclusions Training in cognitive strategies alone promotes cognitive processing of 360° videos, while combined training leads to more emotional processing. Collaboration helps students to analyse a history‐related 360° video in a cognitive and reflective way before training and to acquire the cognitive strategies during the training. After training, however, students who had previously collaborated processed the video more emotionally than students who had previously worked alone. This study highlights the importance of tailored instructional approaches to maximize the educational potential of immersive technologies in history education.

A key challenge in CSCL research is to find ways to support learners in becoming effective collaborators. While the effectiveness of external collaboration scripts is well established, there is a need for research into support that acknowledges learners’ autonomy during collaboration. In the present study, we compare an external collaboration script and a reflection scaffold to a control condition and examine their effects on learners’ knowledge about effective collaboration and on their groups’ interaction quality. In an experimental study that employed a 1× three-factorial design, 150 university students collaborated in groups of three to solve two information pooling problems. These groups either received an external collaboration script during collaboration, no support during collaboration but a reflection scaffold before beginning to collaborate on the second problem, or no support for their collaboration. Multilevel modeling suggests that learners in the reflection condition gained more knowledge about effective collaboration than learners who collaborated guided by an external collaboration script or learners who did not receive any support. However, we found no effect of the script or the reflection scaffold on the quality of interaction in the subsequent collaboration. Explorative analyses suggest that learners acquired knowledge particularly about those interactions that are required for solving information pooling tasks (e.g., sharing information). We discuss our findings by contrasting the design of the external collaboration script and the reflection scaffold to identify potential mechanisms behind scripting and collaborative reflection and to what extent these forms of support foster collaboration skills and engagement in productive interaction.

A highly authentic learning setting is likely to trigger positive motivational and emotional reactions due to its emphasis on promoting the acquisition of knowledge that is connected and transferable to real-world phenomena outside the learning environment. However, a high level of authenticity is usually accompanied by a high level of complexity due to the complexity inherent in the real world. This complexity can be overwhelming for learners and can hamper or even prevent cognitive learning outcomes. Consequently, to help learners cope with this complexity, they need some kind of instructional support. By building a high level of support into the learning setting in order to promote cognitive learning outcomes, the level of authenticity and thereby the effects of authenticity on motivational outcomes may, however, in turn be reduced. In the present conceptual paper, we refer to this tension between authenticity and complexity, on the one hand, and instructional support, on the other hand, as the “authenticity dilemma”. Based on existing empirical evidence from previous studies, we (1) outline this dilemma, (2) discuss ways to reconceptualize it, and (3) derive implications regarding the conditions and effects of authentic learning. Finally, we discuss the findings of the studies included in the special issue “Perspectives on Authentic Learning” through the lens of the authenticity dilemma.

This paper presents a teacher dashboard intervention study in secondary school practice involving teachers (n = 16) with their classes (n = 22) and students (n = 403). A quasi-experimental treatment-control group design was implemented to compare student learning outcomes between classrooms where teachers did not have access to the dashboard and classrooms where teachers had access to the dashboard. We examined different points in the impact chain of the “LA Cockpit,” a teacher dashboard with a feedback system through which teachers can send feedback to their students on student learning. To investigate this impact chain from teacher use of dashboards to student learning, we analyzed 1) teachers’ perceived technology acceptance of the LA Cockpit, 2) teacher feedback practices using the LA Cockpit, and 3) student knowledge gains as measured by pre- and post-tests. The analysis of n = 355 feedback messages sent by teachers through the LA Cockpit revealed that the dashboard assists teachers in identifying students facing difficulties and that teachers mostly provided process feedback, which is known to be effective for student learning. For student learning, significantly higher knowledge gains were found in the teacher dashboard condition compared to the control condition.