Date of Award

3-22-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Mark A. Reith, PhD

Abstract

The development and integration of computer systems into today’s society and the subsequent growth of cyber as a warfighting domain has led to changes in military and civilian conflict. Several traits unique to cyber, including disruption and fast pace of change, has led to issues never before seen in the military environment, especially with educating and training. A new approach that leverages crowd-sourced content has been proposed. This approach relies on motivating military members to voluntarily engage with technical (cyber) education. The application of gamification, a design practice aimed at increasing user engagement by targeting core motivators in humans, in the military context is presented in this paper. The adaptation and evaluation of unique game elements onto the platform is also discussed. A human-subject study involving a survey and engagement-tracking experiment is implemented. Results are analyzed using visualization software and a novel framework we created. We then present results explaining what core drives motivate military members on average and within subgroups. We also show that engagement data can be attributed to motivation levels. Finally, we present recommendations to military leadership and education platform designers based on our findings before discussing ideas for future work.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENG-MS-19-M-061

DTIC Accession Number

AD1076457

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