The Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1 - 90

Sam Chu * Elsie Li Chen Ong * Albert Chau * Robert Chung

halls at HKU. The sample consisted of 1,221
undergraduate students who completed the
questionnaire, of whom 558 were male and
652 were female. (See Table 1 for participant
demographics.)

Survey Instrument
For quantitative data collection, the questionnaire consisted of 60 items divided into four
sections, all assessing the positive and negative impacts of the hall living experience on
students. These items were created based
on the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived
Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988), the revised
version of the Institutional Integration Scale
(Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980), and data from
a previous study on hall education (Chu et al.,
2019). Respondents were first asked to rate
their satisfaction with hall life on a 5-point
Likert scale ranging from 1 = very dissatisfied to
5 = very satisfied. The second section comprised
33 questions measuring the positive influence
of hall life on academic performance (4 items),
interpersonal outcomes (12 items), and personal development (17 items). Ratings were
given on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from
1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, with a
don't know option. The third section explored
residents' relationships with hall mates, tutors,
and wardens to assess whether good interpersonal relationships contributed positively to
the residence hall living experience (16 items
in total) using a 5-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree,
with a don't know option. The last section examined the negative influences of residential
living with 10 yes/no questions.
For qualitative data, individual interviews
used open-ended questions to elicit participants' perspectives on their gains from living
90

in halls or joining hall events and activities.
Questions included " Please elaborate on
the impact of residence hall living on your
academic performance, interpersonal competence, and personal competence " and " Please
discuss your relationships with your hall tutor
and warden and their impact on your academic, interpersonal, and personal development. "

Procedure
The study protocol was approved by the Faculty
Research Ethics Committee at HKU, and
written informed consent was obtained from
all participants. All of them completed the
questionnaire, which took approximately 20
minutes. The follow-up interviews were conducted by phone, and participants were asked
to elaborate on their residential experience
either in English or Chinese, which took approximately 20 minutes. After each interview,
the data were translated and transcribed for
further analysis.

Data Analysis
Descriptive and inferential analyses were conducted to examine the questionnaire data.
Scores were calculated for each measure to
determine the extent of perceived gains following the residential experience. As the data were
normally distributed, parametric tests (Pearson's correlation) were used, with alpha (α) set
at 0.05 and a confidence interval of 95%.
The qualitative (interview) data were analyzed according to the six-stage framework
proposed by Newell and Burnard (2006). The
interview transcriptions were read and reread
to increase familiarity with the data and identify
general themes. Open coding was first applied,
with the initial codes written in the transcript
margin to summarize and categorize the
content. Where categories overlapped, similar

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1

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