Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 48, No. 1 - 50

Resident Assistants' Leadership Efficacy
socially responsible leadership, and leadership
efficacy. The MSL survey has also
been used in a number of studies related
to students' experiences in residence life
and housing (Early, 2016; Manz, 2019;
Soria & Roberts, 2021). Researchers tested
the psychometric properties of the MSL
instrument and discovered that common
concerns related to self-reported data-social
desirability, halo effect, and item format-
were not problematic in the MSL (Dugan,
2015; Tyree, 1998). Additionally, researchers
who examined the MSL for content, criterion,
and construct validity made several
changes to improve those psychometric
properties, including reducing the number
of items and removing two constructs
(Dugan, 2015; Tyree, 1998).
Sample
In spring 2018, eight of the 14 Big Ten institutions
participated in the MSL, and each
invited 4,000 randomly selected students to
participate in the survey. The response rate
was 22.8% (n = 7,298). Within the sample,
226 students indicated that they had participated
as a resident assistant at some point
during college. We matched those 226 resident
assistants with 226 students who reported
never serving as resident assistants,
resulting in a final sample of 452 students
used in analyses. The descriptive statistics
for the final file are shown in Table 1.
Measures
Independent measure. Our primary independent
variable included whether students
had ever participated as a resident assistant
during college (1 = yes, 0 = no).
Covariate measures. We utilized several
measures as covariates in propensity score
matching. The measures we selected are
known to have relationships with students'
participation in leadership experiences, which
we used as a proxy for serving as a resident
assistant, given an absence of research on
the variables associated with serving as a resident
assistant. Researchers have discovered
that students' high school leadership experiences
are associated with their collegiate
experiences (Komives & Johnson, 2009;
Soria et al., 2013); therefore, we included
how often students participated in leadership
positions in student clubs or organizations
and in community organizations or workrelated
groups in high school (0 = never to
3 = very often) and their pre-college leadership
efficacy. We measured students' precollege
leadership efficacy through four items
in which students indicated their level of
confidence (1 = not at all confident to 5 = very
confident) in leading others, organizing a
group's tasks to accomplish a goal, taking
initiative to improve something, and working
with a team on a group project. We used
factor analysis to develop the pre-college leadership
efficacy variable (as explained below).
We also included demographic covariate
measures including students' self-reported
gender, age, race/ethnicity, transfer status,
and first-generation status (Dugan, 2006;
Dugan & Komives, 2010; Soria et al., 2014).
Furthermore, we used whether students
lived on campus, their academic majors, and
self-reported grade point averages as additional
covariates (Soria et al., 2014). Finally,
we included additional measures of leaderResident
assistants enact leadership on a daily basis as they wrestle with
complex tasks such as community development, conflict resolution, mediation,
policy enforcement, and developmental programming.
50 The Journal of College and University Student Housing
Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 48, No. 1

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