Tagged to Teach Ag Day: Evaluating the Influence of a Recruitment Event on Students’ Perceptions of Campus Climate

Abstract

In an effort to measure the influence of an immersive recruitment event, we sought to evaluate high school students’ perceptions toward university climate before and after engaging in a day-long event hosted as part of National Teach Ag Day. The Inviting School Survey-Revised (ISS-R) was administered via paper and pencil when the students arrived and again at the conclusion of the event. Pre-test scores indicated students had favorable opinions of all aspects of [University’s] climate factors before attending the event; however, mean scores were consistently higher on the post-test than on the pretest for all school climate factor areas. We recommend agricultural education departments explore the possibility of implementing a similar immersive recruitment event tailored specifically for agricultural education students. Further, we recommend future research use experimental methods and larger sample sizes to expand the generalizability of these findings.