Principles for inclusive assessment design in cybersecurity education

When designing cybersecurity assessments, educators aim to achieve several objectives. Primarily, we need to measure how well students meet the intended learning outcomes while ensuring that the assessments are both authentic and valid. This involves providing opportunities for students to develop their security skills and knowledge. Achieving these objectives is challenging and often requires substantial time and effort. In addition to these goals, we must also ensure that the assessments are inclusive since, arguably, a non-inclusive assessment is not truly valid. In cybersecurity, designing inclusive assessments without inadvertently omitting key knowledge and skills can be particularly difficult. This chapter reflects on relevant research on inclusive assessment and identifies core principles that can be applied to cybersecurity assessment design in higher education to improve inclusivity.