The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2 - 30

Michael L. Fanucce • Deborah J. Taub

tion. The instrument is a 4-point Likert-style scale made up of 20 items to which students are instructed to respond based on how well each item describes their residence hall. The response scale ranges from 1 = Doesn’t describe it at all to 4 = Describes extremely well. Cronbach’s alpha scores of .96 and test-retest reliability of .87 after six to seven months suggest a strong instrument. The original scale’s construct validity was established by comparing responses to it to responses to the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (.58) and the LGB Workplace Discrimination Scale (-.52). As anticipated, responses correlated positively (.58) to the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, indicating that those who responded positively to the Climate inventory tended to respond positively to the satisfaction questionnaire as well. Also, as anticipated, responses correlated negatively (-.52) to the LGB Workplace Discrimination Scale, indicating that those who rated the LGBT climate of their workplace positively indicated less LGB workplace discrimination. For the current study, the scale’s language was altered to indicate “residence hall” instead of workplace throughout the 20-item scale. A Cronbach’s alpha of .886 suggests a strong adaptation. Factor analysis of the revised scale revealed only a single factor, homonegativity, in the LGBTRHCI. In order to establish the validity of the adaptation, participants were asked to place their perception of their residence hall on a continuum from 1-9 in three separate questions. The first item established perceived support for LGBT students in the residence hall: 1 = the most supportive towards LGBT students; 9 = completely non-supportive toward LGBT students. The second item established the perceived hostility toward

LGBT students: 1 = not at all hostile; 9 = extremely hostile. The final item established the perceived acceptance of LGBT students in residence halls: 1 = completely unaccepting; 9 = completely accepting. Further evidence of the strength of the adaptation is provided by positive, moderate Pearson’s correlations (r = .424, r = .496, and r = .540 with p < .01) among the three validation items (1, 2, and 3 respectively) and the adapted LGBTRHCI. Residence Hall Climate Scale (RHCS). The climate of the residence hall in general was assessed using Kaya’s Residence Hall Climate Scale (2004). The RHCS is a 30-item, 7-point Likert-style instrument designed to examine how students perceive and feel about their experiences living in a residence hall. Responses range from 1 = Not at all true to 7 = Very true. The RHCS has eight factors: “(a) social support, (b) conflict, (c) group cohesiveness, (d) personalization of residence hall room, (e) feeling of crowding, (f) disruption by noise, (g) cleanliness of the physical setting, and (h) safety” (Kaya, 2004, p. 106). No additional psychometric information on the RHCS was available. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated among respondents for the present study for each of the factors and ranged from .550 to .877 across the various factors of the RHCS, indicating moderate to strong internal consistency (a measure of reliability) of the scales.

Procedures
Subjects were recruited for participation in the study in two separate groups in order to maximize the response from LGBT students. The first group was recruited through an e-mail sent by the Office of the Registrar to 2,000 randomly selected students who were current

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2

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