We continue to publish the results of our study on education in IT. we dealt with education in general: how it affects employment and career, in what areas specialists receive additional education and what motives they are guided by, to what extent the employer promotes such education of their employees.
We found that the most popular form of additional education β after self-education through books, videos and blogs β are courses: 64% of specialists practice this format. In the second part of the study, we will deal with the additional education schools existing on the domestic market, find out the most popular ones, what exactly they give their graduates, and build their rating.
We hope that our research will tell specialists where it is better to go to study, and help schools understand their current strengths and weaknesses and become better.
1. What schools are most known about
In the survey, we offered a choice among 40 schools of additional education in IT: which ones you heard about, which ones you would like to study in, which ones you studied at.
One fifth of all respondents know more than half of the list of schools proposed for voting. More than half of the respondents have heard of such schools as Geekbrains (69%), Coursera (68%), Codecademy (64%), HTML Academy (56%).
As for choosing a platform for their future education, there are no obvious leaders: only a third of the sites received more than 10% of the votes, the rest - less. The majority of votes were collected by Coursera (36%) and Yandex.Practice (33%), the rest - less than 20% each.
In response to a question about the venues that have already received education, the votes were even more diverse: only a quarter of the sites received 10% or more. The leaders were Coursera (33%), Stepik (22%) and HTML Academy (21%). βOtherβ accounted for 22% β these are all sites that were not on our list. The rest of the sites gained - each less than 20%.
All subsequent calculations were carried out only for those schools that were the only ones among those asked in their course experience, and for which 10 or more opinions were accumulated. We did this in order to have an unambiguous relationship between the school chosen by the respondent and the rest of the parameters that he chose in other places of the survey. As a result, out of 40 schools, we have 17 left.
2. Goals that schools help to achieve
In the first part of the study, we saw that 63% most often receive additional education for general development, 47% for solving current problems, and 40% for obtaining a new profession. In the same place, we saw how the ratio of goals differs, depending on the existing higher education or current specialization.
Now let's look at the learning objectives in the context of specific schools.
If we look at the table row by row, we will see what structure of goals the students of each school have. For example, people go to Hexlet mainly to get a new profession (71%), general development (42%) and change of field of activity (38%). With similar goals, they also go to: HTML Academy, JavaRush, Loftschool, OTUS.
If you look at the table by columns, you can compare schools with each other according to the goals that students think they can achieve in them. For example, they work on promotion at work most often in MSDN, Stepik and Coursera (35-38%); change the field of activity - in Hexlet, JavaRush and Skillbox (32-38%).
3. Specializations that schools help to master
Next, we match the current specialization of the respondent with the school where he studied.
Looking at the table row by row, we will see the structure of the demand for the school by specialists in various fields of activity. The schools most in demand by specialists from the largest number of professions are: Coursera, Stepik and Udemy - which is logical, because these are more platforms on which authors themselves can post their courses. But they are closely adjacent to such schools as Netology with Geekbrains, in which courses are added by the organizers themselves. And the schools demanded by specialists from the least number of professions are: Loftschool, OTUS and JavaScript.ru.
Looking at the table vertically, one can compare schools by their depth of demand from certain specializations. So, Loftschool (73%) and HTML Academy (55%) are more in demand among front-end developers, Stratoplan (54%) among managers, Skillbox (42%) among designers, Specialist and MSDN (31-33%) among admins , for testers - JavaRush and Stepik (20-21%)
4. Qualifications that schools help to obtain
In the first part of the study, we saw that in general, in 60% of cases, educational courses do not give any new qualification, then most of all there are juniors (18%), interns (10%) and middles (7%). In the same place, we saw that the ratio of qualifications obtained depends on the field of activity of a specialist.
Now let's look at the same question in the context of the specific schools we are studying.
If you look at the lines, we see that the least likely to provide advanced training are such schools as Coursera, Udemy and Stepik (69-79% of graduates indicated that they did not acquire qualifications) - these are platforms for adding copyright courses of the widest focus. Closely adjacent to them is the Specialist (74%). And most often, schools such as Hexlet, OTUS, Loftschool and JavaRush provide new qualifications (25-39% of graduates indicated that they did not acquire qualifications).
If you look at the columns, it is striking that Skillbox, Hexlet, JavaRush, Loftschool and HTML Academy are more focused on training juniors (27-32%), OTUS - on training middles (40%), Stratoplan - on training senior managers. link (15%).
5. Criteria for choosing schools
From the first part of the study, we know that the most important criteria for choosing courses are the program of study (74% noted this criterion) and the format of education (54%).
Now let's see how these criteria differ when choosing a particular school.
We note only the brightest points of the table, everyone can see the rest on their own. Thus, obtaining a certificate is extremely important when choosing a Specialist and MSDN (50% of graduates named this criterion). The teaching staff plays a huge role in OTUS (67%) - this criterion for this school in general turns out to be the most important. According to reviews on the Internet, schools such as Hexlet and Loftschool are chosen (62% and 70%, respectively). For Loftschool, the criterion of the cost of education is also very significant (70%).
As you can see, the schools of additional education are very different from each other: in their specialization, the qualifications issued, the goals achieved, the criteria for their choice. As a result, at the moment there is no school that would be the undisputed leader in the additional education market.
Nevertheless, we will try to further build a rating of schools based on the indirect data that we received in our survey.
6. Rating of schools of additional education
We proceed from the fact that educational courses should solve purely practical problems of their graduates, namely:
- The school should provide the necessary experience (let's call it "real knowledge" and give this criterion a weight of 4) and help with direct employment (let's call it "real help" and give it a weight of 3).
- In addition, it would be nice for the school to issue a certificate that is recognized by the employer, as well as to give work in the portfolio (let's call all this together βindirect helpβ and give a weight of 3).
As a result, if each graduate says that the school gave him the necessary experience (4), helped him with employment (+3), and also gave him works in his portfolio and a good certificate that helped him in employment and career (+3), then the school will receive the maximum rating is 10.
To begin with, let's calculate the indirect assistance that schools provide with their certificates and works in the portfolio of graduates. The red columns highlight the survey data: what proportion of graduates noted this quality of the school, and purple - our calculations.
First, we consider the average help of the certificate as the arithmetic mean of its help in finding employment and career. We get that, for example, the Loftschool certificate helps 27% of graduates, and the Codeacademy certificate only 5%.
Next, we calculate the average indirect help of the school as the arithmetic mean of help from the certificate and help from works in the portfolio. We get that, for example, Hexlet is not very good with certificates (8%), but the coolest with works in the portfolio (46%). As a result, their average is good, although not the largest - 27%.
Next, we combine all our three main criteria, calculate the total score and sort by it: here is our final rating!
An example of calculating the total score for Loftschool: 0.73 x 4 + 0.18 x 3 + 0.32 x 3 = 4.41.
This rating is based on indirect data from our survey. We did not ask respondents directly about each of the schools. In addition, the number of opinions taken into account for each school is different: some have only 10, while others have more than 100. Therefore, the rating we have built is more of a test experimental character and reflects only the most general patterns. Over time, we will start building it on My Circle on a regular basis, adding the ability to rate them on multiple criteria to the school pages, and get a more objective picture. How .
And now we offer everyone who took additional education courses to go to My Circle and add them to your profile so that you can see interesting statistics on graduates. Profiles of schools included in the top 5 on My Circle: , , , , .
PS Who took part in the survey
About 3700 people took part in the survey:
- 87% men, 13% women, average age 27, half of the respondents aged 23 to 30 years.
- 26% from Moscow, 13% from St. Petersburg, 20% from million-plus cities, 29% from other Russian cities.
- 67% are developers, 8% are system administrators, 5% are testers, 4% are managers, 4% are analysts, and 3% are designers.
- 35% middle specialists (middle), 17% junior specialists (junior), 17% senior specialists (senior), 12% leading specialists (lead), 7% students, 4% interns, middle and top managers.
- 42% work in a small private company, 34% in a large private company, 6% in a state-owned company, 6% are freelancers, 2% have their own business, 10% are temporarily unemployed.
Source: habr.com