Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 48, No. 1 - 15

globe (e.g., Martin-Carbonell et al., 2021;
Romano et al., 2020; Villieux et al., 2016).
Several research studies have used the
scale to understand individuals' well-being
during the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., Ceri
& Cicek, 2021; Elemo et al., 2021; Nyunt
et al., 2021). To complete the Flourishing
Scale, respondents rate statements on a
7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly
disagree to 7 = strongly agree. The sum of responses
across all items provides a score
of one's self-perceived social-psychological
well-being on a range of 8 to 56, with a
higher number indicating a higher level of
well-being.
The survey included two versions of the
Flourishing Scale. The first version asked
respondents to indicate, in retrospect, how
they felt prior to the start of the COVID-19
pandemic. Statements were rephrased to
clarify the timeframe. For example, the statement
" My social relationships are supportive
and rewarding " was rephrased to " My
social relationships were supportive and rewarding
prior to the start of the coronavirus
pandemic. " Retrospective assessments are
commonly used in research on well-being,
though concerns about recall bias and memory
distortion exist (Tiberius, 2006); these
limitations are discussed in detail below. The
second version of the Flourishing Scale was
unaltered and asked respondents to describe
their well-being at the time of completing the
survey, late October or early November 2020.
An additional 8 items were developed
by the researcher and reviewed by two colleagues,
who have many years of residence
life experience. These questions asked about
participants' fears related to health, support
from their supervisor, confidence in leadership,
and participants' feelings about and
intentions to continue working in residence
life. See Table 2 for a list of questions by topic.
Data Analysis
Data was analyzed using SPSS, Version 26.
The cleaned data set excluded respondents
who had not completed all 8 items of each
of the Flourishing Scale (FS) measures to
ensure that scores of their social-psychological
well-being would be accurate. Responses
in the " Other " category of demographic
questions were reviewed to identify if any
of these could be grouped for analysis. Descriptive
statistics of the cleaned data set
provided a sense of who respondents were
and what their experiences had been during
the pandemic.
To analyze respondents' FS scores, individual
FS scores were calculated at two time
points (before the pandemic, reported in
retrospect, and during the pandemic, at the
time of survey completion) along with the
difference in individuals' FS scores from before
to during the pandemic. Paired samples
t-tests allowed for examination of changes in
participants' social-psychological well-being
from before to during the pandemic (late
October/early November 2020) for the entire
sample as well as various demographic
groups. The analysis also included one-way
ANOVAs to compare FS score means by
. . . more than two-thirds of respondents (65.7%) believed that
their residence life work responsibilities jeopardized their health.
Almost half (48%) believed that their residence life work responsibilities
also jeopardized the health of their loved ones.
Volume 48, No. 1 * 2021
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Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 48, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 48, No. 1
