EMCC Financial Aid facilitates the Be A Leader (BAL) organization coming on campus once a week to help students with FAFSA application and questions. BAL sits at a table in Komatke West with a Financial Aid tablecloth. They are located in the front student service area with three student use computers next to them. We want students to walk up to the table and ask for FAFSA assistance so we added a stand up sign on the table as well.
The FAFSA application process is complex and difficult for students to complete so we want to have as much help as possible easily available. Knowing what words are most effective in getting students to come up to a table for help allows us to best use the BAL resource and help our students.
We were not sure what verbiage on the sign would be most effective in encouraging students to stop at the table to ask FAFSA questions. Several FA staff gave input on wording and we asked the student workers in FA for input. There were varying opinions on what would work best so we decided to try two different signs and evaluate which one worked the best based on student visits. We used the first sign that said "Assistance Here" for seven weeks. We switched it to a different sign that said "Ask me now" for seven weeks.
For the time period when we used the first sign there were a total of 5 students who came up to the table for assistance. During the time period we used the second sign there were 6 students. That isn't much of a difference so we looked for other variations between the two 7 week periods. Student traffic in the area during the two time periods was similar because both were during open registration for a term. We did find that during the first 7 week period BAL was not able to make it for 2 of those weeks. For the second 7 week period BAL was not able to make it 4 of those weeks. Based on that information the second sign appears to be more effective in encouraging students to stop at the table.