A new college exit exam called the Collegiate Learning Assessment Plus will be introduced to college campuses around the nation.

The CLA+, administered by the Council for Aid to Education, will primarily test students on critical thinking skills.

Director of Career Services at San Diego State James Tarbox said the entire California State University system, including SDSU, currently participates in the Voluntary System of Accountability to test students’ progress.  In the past, a group of freshmen would take the original Collegiate Learning Assessment when they entered college and again when they graduated.

More than 200 U.S. colleges will have their graduating students take the CLA+ in Spring 2014, according to USA Today.  This will be a trial run for the CLA+  to examine students’ performance on the test. The test will be used to observe graduating students’ value for potential employers.

According to the CAE website, the CLA+ will be a two-part exam consisting of a section dedicated to performance-based tasks and a section of selected-response questions.

The performance task section of the CLA+ exam will give students real-world problems to solve by using multiple sources and documents.

The selected response portion presents 25 questions, meant to test scientific and quantitative reasoning, critical reading and evaluation and the ability to criticize an argument.

Though the CLA+ seems like another challenge, it can have a positive influence on college students’ lives, Tarbox said.

“If we expand into areas like critical thinking, we would also at some point say to students the time that you’re going to college is the time you are developing as an individual as well,” Tarbox said. “You learn to become more emotionally intelligent and you learn to apply decision making to your personal life.”

The negative side of this test is potentially creating a stigma for employers because a test can’t show an employee’s work ethic, Tarbox said.

Director of Student Testing Assessment and Research at SDSU Reynaldo Monzon said the test could be beneficial to students.

“I believe the CLA+ is an advantage for students because they have additional info for employers,” Monzon said.

Unlike grades and resumes, the CLA+ would allow employers to statistically see students’ critical thinking skills and communication abilities.

Tarbox said there will be discussions this year and the next about implementing the CLA+ at SDSU and at other CSUs. However, because the system is so large the process could take longer.

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