Cisco Learning Institute's evaluation, measurement and statistics team examines the design and implementation strategies of professional learning for educators and analyzes the impact on student learning and student success. The evaluation results guide development of effective learning solutions.

Networking Skills in North America: Trends, Gaps and Strategies

How many networking professionals are needed in the future? How does that compare to the number of people who will have networking skills? Which skills will be most highly sought after by employers? In November 2007, Cisco Learning Institute commissioned IDC to expand their research on IT skill gaps in the U.S. and Canada regions with a focus on networking skills. Their estimates suggest that demand for professionals with computer networking skills in the United States and Canada will outpace the supply of workers with those skills by an average of 8 percent per year through 2011, amounting to a shortage of about 60,000 full-time workers each year. The researchers surveyed 500 employers about their expected needs for skills and combined it with labor market and technology market trends to project the availability of and demand for networking skilled personnel in North America from 2008 through 2011. According to the study, the skills shortage gap is particularly acute in specialty areas such as voice and wireless, in which the gap reaches 37 and 19 percent, respectively. Network security also will have a significant gap by 2011 at 11 percent, equating to a shortage of 34,000 security-skilled workers.

View White Paper (PDF Format)

Success of the CCNA Program: Six-month Follow-up

In this study, Indiana University, as an independent, third party evaluator, focuses on the overall impact of the CCNA program on student success, six months after completion of the program. They compared the success of U.S. CCNA students to a "comparison group" of similar U.S. students drawn from the same high schools or community colleges who did not enroll in the CCNA program.

The study showed that the CCNA program had an "education effect" on high school students and an "employment effect" on community college students in the United States. High school students with a career interest in IT who completed the CCNA program were 10% more likely than other students at the same school to take the SAT/ACT exam and 50% more likely to enroll in a 4-year university program. Community college students who completed the CCNA program were 30% more likely to get a full-time job and averaged a 20% higher salary ($40,660 vs. $33,950). In addition, there was a powerful effect on student attitudes concerning the value of learning and the effort they are willing to expend in learning.

View the Research (PDF Format)

Understanding What Students Understand

It is important for instructors to recognize how students organize and relate ideas to each other, allowing them to identify student misconceptions. Students must learn not just concepts, but how different concepts in a domain fit together. In the field of computer networking, little is known about how students conceptualize the domain, or how that changes over time. Using a technique of rating similarity between words, this paper demonstrates the change in students' models of computer networking over time, and discusses how the technique might be used to evaluate changes in knowledge structure in other disciplines.

View the Research (PDF Format)

Identifying Keystone Concepts: Big Ideas in Computer Networking

Educators must make choices about how much time to allocate to topics within a course and how much emphasis to place on various topics within a domain. They need to know which basic concepts are most important for understanding of more advanced topics; they require the identification of keystone concepts in a curriculum. We define keystone concepts as the the central building blocks in a curriculum; they provide the foundation for the learning of other related concepts. This paper uses the example of computer networking to demonstrate how keystone concepts can be empirically identified using conditional probabilities and Bayesian networks.

View the Research (PDF Format)

Who Are They and Why Don't They Finish?

Web-based online surveys are now a well-recognized method of gathering data. Their use allows tracking of a particular kind of non-respondent - the answering dropout, who begins answering questions but drops out before completing the survey. Converting this group into completers may be a relatively easy way to increase response rates. In order to do so, the factors relating to their dropout must be understood. This study examines responses to surveys to determine which survey and respondent factors may be related to dropping out of surveys. Survey responses from ten surveys (eight for instructors and two for students) administered in the Cisco Networking Academy Program were analyzed. For each survey, number of questions, number of pages, median time to complete, number of each type of questions, number of topics covered, and translation were coded. For each respondent survey completion status, country, computer infrastructure, and education level were coded. Visual analysis of graphical patterns suggests rules of thumb to help reduce rates of answering dropouts.

View the Research (PDF Format)

Developing Instructors to Actively Teach in an eLearning Curriculum

Creating a program to allow instructors of an elearning curriculum to continue developing their teaching skills can be a complex task. Such a program must not only be usable and appreciated by instructors, but change their classroom practices and ultimately improve student learning. In order to approach these goals, it is necessary to use a research-based process from the beginning of the creation of the program through its completion. We will describe Cisco Learning Institute's development of an e-learning approach for instructors already teaching an e-learning curriculum in the Cisco Networking Academy Program. The presentation of e-learning tools for instructors that resulted from this process will complete the session.

View the Research (PDF Format)

Knowledge Structures of Entering Computer Networking Students and Their Instructors

Students bring prior knowledge to their learning experiences. This prior knowledge is known to affect how students encode and later retrieve new information learned. The current paper is a preliminary attempt to explore the knowledge structures of students entering a computer networking class and their instructors using the Pathfinder network methodology. Analysis of the resulting networks revealed an instructor map that corresponded to the OSI model, a model of networking. The corresponding student map indicated students did not have this conceptualization of how the theoretical layers of the model work. By understanding some of the ways that students understand concepts prior to instruction, teachers should be better able to focus and tailor instruction.

View the Research (PDF Format)

Packet Tracer Classroom Experiments

The Networking Academy has created curricula in which students learn by doing. Part of this strategy includes embedding Packet Tracer, a network simulation and visualization tool, in the curriculum. This study sought to quantitatively demonstrate the effectiveness of Packet Tracer as a learning tool in Networking Academy classrooms. In order to isolate the effects of Packet Tracer, a control group design was used with one group completing subnetting exercises using Packet Tracer and another group completing similar exercises using a paper and pencil. Results suggest Packet Tracer is an effective tool for teaching networking.

View the Research (PDF Format)

How Can Professional Development Impact Teacher Practice and Student Achievement?

This review examines the elements of professional development that have been shown in quality research to produce changes in teacher behavior and/or increased student achievement. There are various activities that can be offered as part of a development program and various environments in which they can be offered. If these activities and environments follow the ideas above, they can be successful. In other words, it is not so much how or where content is presented, but the methods by which teachers interact with it that is important.

View the Research (PDF Format)