Abstract:
The increasing technology reliance in today’s world has amplified the need for
cybersecurity education for all. Hence, initiatives regarding the integration of cyber-
security education within the pre-college level have begun to emerge in recent times.
However, limited research exists regarding in-service or pre-service teachers’ per-
spectives on this phenomenon. More importantly, the need to understand pre-service
teachers’ perceptions; since their perceptions may significantly influence how the
prospective teachers respond to cybersecurity issues and also affect their behavior
toward learning and promoting cybersecurity education in the future. Consequently,
in order to gain insight into how candidates entering the teaching profession regard
cybersecurity, 451 pre-service teachers were sampled in a major public university in
Lesotho. The prospective teachers recruited across various departments in the fac-
ulty of education responded to an online survey that comprised 33 items gauged
from five constructs which include personal cybersecurity awareness, perceived self-
efficacy of learning cybersecurity, personal relevance of cybersecurity knowledge,
behavioral intention towards learning cybersecurity and actual learning of cyberse-
curity. We analyzed the response from the survey by utilizing the structural equation
modelling approach. Our findings showed that our hypothesized model was mostly
accepted. The result suggests that practitioners and researchers in the related field
need to raise the pre-service teacher’s behavioral intention to learn cybersecurity by
helping them realize the implication for their personal lives and society. We dis-
cussed our findings in relation to the proposed research model and highlighted the
implication for teacher education programs. Finally, the article concludes with limi-
tations and identifies future research agenda
