1 Introduction

Performing Cyber Cognitive Tasks in the Hybrid Space [8] requires high order cognitive capabilities that are aligned with automated technical solutions. As cyberspace and the physical domain merge and command levels converge, managing multiple simultaneous interactions demand humans apply context adaptive coping strategies for improved decision-making and performance to affect cognitive processes and resulting behavior [3].

The actual ‘ability to control’ had the strongest positive effect on cyber officer cadet’s performance in both military and academic contexts [4]. Further, motivation gained by understanding the reason and the importance of the cyber task, had a positive effect on the performance of the cyber tasks [5].

In this study, we combined these two previous studies by Helkala et al. in an attempt to find out which Coping Strategies (see Sect. 2.2) cyber officer cadets of the Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy (NDCA) used when conducting Cyber Cognitive Task Performance tests.

2 Experiment

The experiment took place during Exercise Cyber Endurance 2015: a two-week long military exercise held annually. Total of 35 cyber officer cadets of the NDCA self-evaluated their use of pre-determined coping strategies (see Sect. 2.2) and their perceived performance (on a scale of 1–6) in the Cyber Cognitive Task tests (see Sect. 2.1). The self-evaluation questionnaire was completed alongside a Reflections Log. Detailed descriptions of the earlier experiments can be found in [4, 5].

2.1 Cyber Cognitive Performance Test

Cyber Cognitive Performance Test contained five tasks.

  • 1st task: The participants were told to monitor continuously moving network traffic and raise an alarm when they observed a traffic peak taller or equal to 3000. This task took 20 min to complete.

  • 2nd task: The participants were told to detect different states of different network devices in a very unstable environment. Basic geometric figures were presented for one second, then a 2 × 2 matrix appeared for 3 s and the cadets had to identify and locate the figure in the matrix. In total, 75 single figure and corresponding matrix pairs were presented.

  • 3rd task: The participants used trial-and-error method to memorize a random 12 digit long encryption key. The same sequence had to be completed 15 times.

  • 4th task: The participants were given one chance to enter the complete encryption key from the 3rd task.

  • 5th task: The participants were instructed to memorize coded messages sent from a terrorist grouping. The messages contained three Norwegian sentences with a total of 13–14 words and a picture of five single-color basic geometric figures. The message was visible for one minute. Subsequently, they had to write down the sentences and draw the figures.

2.2 Coping Strategies

Coping strategies are a series of universal tools to support performance.

  • Situational Understanding: a person’s ability to gain a comprehensive overview of current challenges to support understanding tasks and possible future challenges.

  • Accept the situation: a person’s ability to accept and work purposefully within the operational environment and with the resources available.

  • Use of knowledge and tools: active cooperation and performance tracking. Application of logic and common sense to support theoretical and practical knowledge.

  • Ability to be proactive: to be forewarned and prepared for changes. Constantly revise and trust intuition.

  • Finding alternatives and solutions: a person’s ability to be open to others’ input and applying creative or logical thought.

  • Ability to prioritize: set priorities among assignments, personnel, material and intellectual resources to support decision-making.

  • Ability to control: manage levels of oversight and detail concerning resources, responsibility, risk, capacities and capabilities in any given context. Awareness of the relative power and agency of those around you (internal and external).

  • Ability to influence: an individual’s ability to cut through complexity and tension to find suitable and effective means of affecting positive outcomes.

  • Self - confidence and belief in oneself: a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, skills, knowledge, and judgement.

  • Ability to handle uncertainty: to focus on one’s own reactions and take steps to actively manage behavior.

3 Results

The cyber officer cadets self-evaluated their performance with scale from one to six, where six was the best performance score. The t-test showed that the average rate of self-evaluated performance was significantly higher among students who reported usage of ability to control-strategy than among the students that did not use the strategy, see Table 1. Similar result applied the students that used self-confidence and belief oneself strategy. There were no significant differences with usage of the other strategies.

Table 1. The average rates of self-evaluated performance
Full size table

4 Discussion

In this small study students self-evaluated their own performance in Cyber Cognitive Task Performance tests. Before the students answered the Coping and Performance questionnaire they were able to reflect and discuss with colleagues concerning performance. In addition, submitting the self-evaluation questionnaire with a Reflection Log was a pedagogic method introduced for personal development throughout the entire semester. This made the self-evaluated performance scores more reliable.

The results showed significantly better performance rates among participants who stated using the ability to control and self-confidence and belief in oneself strategies. These results support earlier research findings as both strategies (as defined in Sect. 2.2) contribute to self-efficacy; an individual’s belief about his capabilities to complete a task with certain performance levels [1].

Stajkovic and Luthans [9] found that situational self-efficacy is a predictor for performance in different domains. Judge et al. [7] showed that high self-efficacy predicts task-related performance. Hepler and Feltz [6] connected high self-efficacy to better decision-making strategies and therefore better task performance. Choi, Levy and Hovav [2] showed that in cases were cyber task demands and their relevance are defined self-efficacy can enhance cyber oriented performance.

Our findings, together with earlier research, suggests that motivation gained by task-related information, increase one’s belief in the ability to control the situation and therefore empowers performance.

5 Conclusion

In this study, the cyber officer cadets from the NDCA were asked to self-evaluate their overall performance when conducting Cyber Cognitive Tasks tests during a military exercise, and, report usage of Coping Strategies and own performance.

Cyber Cognitive Performance tests included password recalling, net traffic and state monitoring, memorizing a message and a key. The coping strategies were; situational understanding, accept the situation, use of knowledge and tools, ability to be proactive, finding alternatives and solutions, ability to prioritize, ability to control, ability to influence, self-confidence and belief in oneself and ability to handle uncertainty.

The results showed the average rate of self-evaluated performance was significantly higher among students who reported usage of ability to control-strategy and/or usage of self-confidence and belief oneself- strategy. This, combined with the earlier finding relating to motivation gained by understanding the reason and the importance of the cyber task having a positive effect on the performance of the cyber tasks [5], supports research showing that; in cases when cyber task demands, and their relevance are defined, then self-efficacy can enhance cyber oriented performance [2].

This suggests that motivation gained by task-related information can increase beliefs in the ability to control the situation and therefore empowers the performance.