PBL4DF: Problem-Based Learning for Digital Forensics in Community Colleges

Digital forensics is a challenging area to teach effectively in community colleges due to its interdisciplinary nature, integrating law and computer science, and the diverse student population, including many first-generation, low-income students who may be less prepared academically. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy and a promising teaching tool for community college students. It consists of complex, open-ended, real-world problems to promote learning complex concepts and principles in digital forensics along-with fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This paper presents PBL course modules for digital forensics and further discusses their longitudinal study evaluation in three semesters in a community college setting. The evaluation results show that most students in the study find PBL pedagogy effective over traditional lecture-based learning. An external independent evaluation is also conducted to assess the effectiveness of PBL pedagogy. Specifically, the PBL helped the students think critically, promoted hands-on learning, problem solving in addition to facilitating their understanding of digital forensics concepts. 100 % students reported that they liked the hands-on experience, the structure of PBL exercises, and how it improved their understanding.