Investigation of primary school teachers' cyber resilience levels

Date

2025-6-13

Author

Koca, Boran

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This study aims to examine the cyber resilience levels of primary school teachers within the context of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) and their relationship with demographic and behavioral traits such as experience, duration of daily internet use, and whether they had received previous cybersecurity training. A total of 192 primary school teachers were surveyed online, and a cross-sectional quantitative design was employed. The cyber resilience of the teachers was assessed through open-ended questions aligned with CSF in a cyber-attack scenario form. Using a rubric, qualitative data were converted into quantitative data. After measuring validity with Cohen's Kappa, data were analyzed using descriptive and non-parametric statistics. The findings showed that teachers' cyber resilience skills need improvement in terms of the five functions of the NIST CSF. Separate analysis of the sub-factors confirmed that they also need improvements in the fields of maintaining a safe school environment, including recognizing risky data, identifying problems, resisting threats, and recovering from attacks. According to the distributions, they have the necessary knowledge and skills in protection functions, i.e., simple proactive security measures. There is a statistically significant difference in teachers’ cyber resilience with respect to gender. The use of digital tools has a slight positive correlation with the total cyber resilience scores. Neither the daily internet usage time factor nor the professional experience factor has any significant relationship with teachers' cyber resilience. On the other hand, the factor of receiving cybersecurity training has a significant impact on teachers' cyber resilience. This study contributes to the development of training programs for teachers to enhance their cyber resilience skills and thus to create a safer school environment.

Subject Keywords

Cyber threats, Cybersecurity, Cyber resilience, Cyber attacks, Primary school teaachers

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115115

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis