With the increase in cybercrime costing organizations financial loss and loss to their reputation, the need to hire qualified and experienced employees is paramount. As the gap in the workforce shortage widens, cybersecurity education and training institutions are struggling to produce a capable workforce with enough experience and skills that organizations require. An effective method of building experience and skills is through active and experiential learning associated with computer simulations used in cyber training and competitions. These training simulations and competitions have varying degrees of realism incorporated into them because of the complexity of mimicking real-world operational environments, such as the Internet. This study is designed to understand and measure the effectiveness of incorporating realism into cyber training and its impact on satisfaction, interest, motivation, and experience. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]