The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2 - 31

Homonegativity and Residence Hall Climate Perceptions

The research question for this study is as follows: What is the relationship between students’—both LGBT and non-LGBT—perceived levels of homonegativity and their perceptions of the climate and community in campus residence halls?

or past residence hall residents. Of the 2,000 solicited, 245 responded, yielding a response rate of 12.25%. The second group was recruited using the LGBT student listserv. Of the approximately 200 members of the listerv, 39 responded, yielding a response rate of 19.5%. The e-mails sent to participants directed them to the survey and provided a password for the site. Students in the LGBT listserv group received a follow-up e-mail four weeks after the first contact to remind them that the survey was available, and students who had previously completed the survey were thanked for their previous participation. No identifying information was collected on any of the students, and all of the data were stored online in a database accessible only by the researchers until completion of the study when it was relocated to a local server.

(in this case, the scores on the homonegativity scale and the residence hall climate scales). The advantage of using the MANOVA rather than performing several ANOVAs (analysis of variance) is that it protects against the risk of inflating Type I error from multiple tests (Warner, 2008). A significant result from the MANOVA would indicate that significant differences exist. The analysis showed significant results by group: Wilks Lambda = .78, F(18, 546.00) = 4.017, p < .000. Next, univariate analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed by group to determine on which scales there were significant differences. The analyses showed significant main effects by group for the following: • homonegativity F(2, 281) = 16.029 (p < .000) • social support F(2, 281) = 6.225 (p < .002) • group cohesiveness F(2, 281) = 6.383 (p < .002) • personalization F(2, 281) = 6.228 (p < .002) • crowding F(2, 281) = 9.127 (p < .000) • cleanliness F(2, 281) = 5.574 (p < .004) • safety F(2, 281) = 6.598 (p < .002) This means that there were significant differences among groups on these scales, but it does not indicate which groups differed from one another. Therefore, post hoc tests were performed. Tukey’s post hoc test revealed that heterosexual non-allies and heterosexual allies were not statistically different (p < .05) on the following scales: LGBTRHCI and the social support, crowding, group cohesiveness, cleanliness, and safety subscales of the RHCS. No significant differences appeared among any of the groups on the noise and conflict subscales of the RHCS (see Table 2).
V o l u m e 3 6 , No. 2 • 2 0 1 0

ANALYSIS
A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to test for differences in mean scores by group (LGBT, Ally, non-Ally). The MANOVA is an omnibus test that is used when there are multiple dependent variables

31
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2
