Recruitment Methods:
Plan an awareness/advertising campaign:
- Send campus e-blast emails and post on campus-wide message boards.
- Post signs in high-traffic areas around campus or use social media to promote CLA+.
Share ways in which students can use their student score reports: students can supplement their graduate school applications with CLA+ scores, students can share their results with prospective employers as evidence of their critical-thinking skills, and students can use their results to identify areas where they are excelling or may want to focus their efforts.
For freshmen, have a (virtual) sign-up table during orientation. We suggest that you:
- Reserve in advance all computer labs for specific testing dates.
- Have students sign up for a date and time on the spot.
- Take their email addresses and/or phone numbers and inform them that they will be contacted twice: first to confirm that they signed up, and again as a reminder closer to the actual test date.
Student Incentives:
Embedding CLA+ in campus events may not work for all institutions. Depending on your campus culture, you may want to offer incentives to your students to encourage participation. Experience from most campuses suggests that simply asking students to voluntarily participate in CLA+ is not as successful as other recruitment strategies. The following is a list of strategies used to recruit students for CLA+. Please note that successful recruitment practices vary across institutions.
Most Preferable:
- Course registration preference for the next semester
- In-kind payment (discount of $25 at book store, gift certificate, etc.)
- Prizes or raffles (1 in 10 chance of winning an iPad)
- Cash incentives ($25)
- Inclusion of CLA+ score on résumé
Moderately Preferable:
- Obtaining feedback on personal strengths and weaknesses by faculty (professor, advisor, etc.) or school administrator (president, dean, provost, etc.)
- Helping school assess student learning
- Reviewing student performance as it compares to peers
- Acknowledging of participation in printed materials (newsletter, annual report, etc.)
Other Successful Ideas from CLA+ Institutions:
- Priority seating and/or extra tickets to graduation
- Recognition for participating during graduation
- Reserved parking permit
- University paraphernalia (T-shirts, pens, etc.)
- USB flash drives for all participants
- Participation and results noted on student transcripts
- Priority placement in housing lottery
CLA+ strongly discourages the use of punitive recruitment and motivational techniques.