journal_vol49no2 - 53

The Anatomy of Room Change
sometimes result in room change requests. In addition, minoritized students are less
likely to seek assistance for roommate conflicts, so room change requests are often
the first instance when college administrators become aware of roommate difficulty
(Bresnahan et al., 2009).
Using archival data from a large university in the eastern U.S., this study explores
the relationship between room change requests for first-year students and several factors:
personal characteristics and roommate similarity (i.e., socioeconomic status and
race), residence hall design, and academic performance. One step was to determine if
there were differences in the relationship between the number of room change requests
and the particular design of a residence hall. Traditional double-corridor halls, which
varied based on location, also varied in the number of residents' requests for room
changes. One double-corridor residence hall, which was centrally located to campus
amenities, had the highest room change request rate, one similar to that of students in
the suite-style residence halls. The other traditional double-corridor halls had the lowest
number of room change requests. For hybrid luxury residence halls, which contain elements
of both double-corridor and suite designs, the number of room change requests
were near the average for that of the campus.
As shown in Figure 1 (see page 51), the number of room change requests also varied
by students' grade point averages (GPAs). First-year students with higher GPAs in
the suite-style (>3.65), centralized double-corridor (>3.65), and hybrid luxury residence
halls (>3.47) were less likely to request room changes than were first-year students with
lower GPAs in the same residence halls. In the hybrid luxury designs, students with
lower GPAs had a higher room change request rate when living with a roommate of a
different race (4.5% vs. 2.9%). Age also played a role. Students with high GPAs living in
hybrid luxury designs who were 18 years old were less likely to request a room change
than were 19- and 20-year-old first-year students (1.6% vs. 3.5%). And, finally, socioeconomic
status (SES) made a difference; in centralized double-corridor and suite-style residence
halls, similarities in socioeconomic status appear to result in fewer room change
requests.
These results are consistent with those in the research on the frequency of room
changes as it relates to race and socioeconomic status (Chavous et al., 2002; Shook &
Fazio, 2008a, 2008b). They are also consistent with the findings of studies showing
that residence hall design, combined with race and household income, influences a
student's initial choice of a residence hall and their academic performance (Brown
et al., 2021; Foste, 2021). However, the results were inconsistent in that there was
considerable variability in the number of room change requests in residence halls
with corridor design elements (double-corridor and hybrid luxury). Differences in
residence hall design and students' household income and race were related to the
number of room change requests but were conditional on one another. We found that
high academic performers requested room changes less frequently across all living
situations. This study helps develop a more nuanced understanding of how race and
household income interact with other academic and environmental factors involved
in first-year students' decisions to change rooms.
50 The Journal of College and University Student Housing

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