Measuring Self-efficacy in Secure Programming.

Computing students are not receiving enough education and practice in secure programming. A key part of being able to successfully implement secure programming practices is the development of secure programming self-efficacy. This paper examines the development of a scale to measure secure programming self-efficacy among students participating in a secure programming clinic (SPC). The results show that the secure programming self-efficacy scale is a reliable and useful measure that correlates satisfactorily with related measures of programming expertise. This measure can be used in secure programming courses and other learning environments to assess students’ secure programming efficacy.