Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3 - 34

It is essential that interview questions are carefully developed to
assess the knowledge desired about each candidate. However,
there is little research specifically evaluating the questions asked
during RA selection interviews.
ment interviews (Hartwell et al., 2019), there
is limited research on the questions used
during the RA selection process. The purpose of this qualitative study was to fill a gap
in existing literature regarding the kinds of
questions used in RA selection interviews.

METHOD
The research team selected a qualitative
study as the method of research because it
involves a naturalistic approach where one
derives meaning through interpretation and
phenomena. Data may be classified, coded,
and interpreted into meaningful categories
or themes (Creswell, 2013). Put another way,
" We use qualitative research because quantitative research measures and statistical analysis simply do not fit the problem " (Cresswell,
2013, p. 48). Gall et al. (2003) maintained
that qualitative researchers have a history
of studying language and communication,
believing language and communication can
be interpreted and studied in the social environment. In this study, the language and
communication being examined were the
interview questions asked of RAs during interview processes.

Sample and Data Collection
This study used a preexisting dataset collected in Fall 2017 by the Research, Assessment,
and Information (RAI) Committee within
The Southwest Association of College and
University Housing Officers (SWACUHO,
2017). The RAI committee emailed all
member institutions requesting they submit copies of the interview questions used
during their RA staff selection processes

and provide consent to make the interview
questions publicly available for the purpose
of creating a resource databank for the regional membership to use. Of the 60 member institutions, 17 responded and provided
the requested information. Of these 17, only
12 institutions granted permission for their
data to be made publicly available. According
to a personal communication from Stoner (2020), the RAI Committee Chair at the
time of data collection, the original call for
interview questions allowed for departments
to submit questions to the RAI committee
for analysis in the aggregate without having their questions publicly available in the
question bank. Thus, any such questions
that did not have permission to be publicly
shared were completely excluded from the
analysis since the researchers were unable to
confirm if their intent for their documents to
be withheld from the membership extended
to the goals of our study. The RAI committee
provided the questions to the research team
from the remaining 12 participating institutions. Institutional and departmental information was removed by the RAI Committee
prior to receipt to maintain confidentiality
and anonymity.

DATA ANALYSIS
Content analysis is a useful tool for research in the field of library science (Zhang
& Wildemuth, 2009) and technical writing (Boettger & Palmer, 2010). This study
employed qualitative content analysis due
to the focus on themes and not linguistic
units such as words and sentences (Zhang
& Wildemuth, 2009). Qualitative content

Volume 47, No. 3 * 2021

Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3