No abstract

During the pandemic, the prevailing online learning has brought tremendous benefits to the education field. However, it has also become a target for cybercriminals. Cybersecurity awareness (CSA) or Internet security awareness in the education sector turns out to be critical to mitigating cybersecurity risks. However, previous research indicated that using education level alone to judge CSA level received inconsistent results. This study postulated Social Educational Level (SEL) as a moderator with an extended Knowledge-Attitude-Behaviour model, used students’ year level as a proxy for the impact of education level, and used work exposure for the influence of social education level, to compare CSA among undergraduates, postgraduates and working graduates. The participants in the study were divided into six groups, namely year 1 university students, year 2-3university students, final-year students, postgraduate students, young working graduates, and experienced working graduates. The Human Aspects of Information Security Questionnaire was used to conduct a large-scale survey. The multivariate regression model analysis showed significant differences among the knowledge, attitude and behaviour dimensions across groups with different conditions of year-level and work exposure. However, it was found that SEL played a more significant role than an individual’s education level. The study suggested that a greater endeavour be committed to educating the public at large together with individuals, institutes, corporate and governments to improve the national CSA level.

This study analyzes the impact of focus on form on task-based contextual word acquisition to inform EFL vocabulary learning in a computer-assisted learning environment, with the goal of gaining a better understanding of the cognitive processes behind vocabulary acquisition. A classroom experiment was conducted at a high school in Fujian, China, to investigate two vocabulary acquisition settings for intermediate-level EFL students: maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal. The results showed that participants in the elaborative rehearsal group outperformed those who recited vocabulary in the maintenance rehearsal condition on the word recall and recognition test. The outcome also indicated that by practicing the input and output of the target words with contextual information in sentence rewriting, the focus-on-form impact of elaborative rehearsal promotes semantic and word form processing.

During the pandemic, the prevailing online learning has brought tremendous benefits to the education fields, however, it has also become a target for cybercriminals. Cybersecurity awareness (CSA) or Internet security awareness (ISA) in the education sector turns out to be critical to mitigating cybersecurity risks. However, previous research indicated that using education level alone to judge CSA level received inconsistent results. This study postulated Social Educational Level (SEL) as a moderator with an extended Knowledge- Attitude-Behaviour (KAB) model, used students’ year level as a proxy for the impact of education level, used work exposure for the influence of social education level, to compare CSA among undergraduates, postgraduates and working graduates. The participants in the study were divided into six groups, namely Year 1 university students, Year 2-3university students, final year students, postgraduate students and young working graduates, and experienced working graduates. Human Aspects of Information Security Questionnaire (HAIS-Q) was used to conduct a large-scale survey. The Multivariate regression model analysis showed significant differences among the knowledge, attitude and behaviour dimensions across groups with different conditions of year level and work exposure. However, it was found that SEL played a more significant role than an individual’s education level. The study suggested that a greater endeavour be committed to educating the public at large together with individuals, institutes, corporate and governments to improve the national CSA level.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the employment and education sectors have shifted significantly toward online platforms. However, the increased reliance on these digital spaces has raised concerns about personal security information. Scholars have taken note of this issue and have explored its implications, with some employing the extended knowledge, attitude, and behavior (KAB) model to investigate the moderating effects of societal education level on the relationship between knowledge and attitude. Hong et al. [1] conducted a study to examine undergraduates’ KAB regarding personal data sharing in Chinese higher education institutions during the pandemic. Using a questionnaire, the study recruited 156 participants from three universities in West and East China. Using SPSS 23.0, data analysis revealed a widespread lack of awareness, a positive attitude, and proper behavior among college students regarding online personal information leakage during the pandemic. Notably, disparities were observed in KAB among students of different grades, majors, and genders. Students in their sophomore, junior, and senior years were found to be more concerned than freshmen about the availability of their personal information online; what’s more, science majors were more concerned than students of other majors. There appear to be significant gender differences in personal information sharing, ie., males are more concerned about the security of personal information online than females. Through this study, we aim to emphasize that college students’ awareness of personal information protection needs to be improved and suggest that university administrators and policymakers increase information security training. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical and practical efforts to improve information security in higher education. Future studies should broaden the survey sample and examine the primary factors that influence college students’ KAB of personal information security to ensure the generalization of findings.