The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 39, No. 2 & Volume 40, No. 1 - 28

Stephanie Sickler • Beverly Roskos

traditional corridor-type high rise with community baths and small double-occupancy rooms.
Though not glamorous in any way, the proximity to first-year students’ nucleus of friends and
campus organizations keeps those who apply
to live in this hall on a waiting list. It would
seem that in cases such as this, in addition
to the availability of friends and roommates,
the issue of proximity to important places on
campus was related to where students’ friends
were. Therefore, factors important for housing
decisions should not be considered to be mutually exclusive. It is suggested that practitioners give careful consideration to roommate
selection processes in an effort to facilitate
friendships among campus residents. One
method to facilitate roommate pairing would
be to include a personality trait assessment
tool such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
in the roommate selection process (Myers &
Myers, 1980). This would allow housing staff
to strategically match students based on personality traits. Each student could be given the
Myers-Briggs literature describing each personality combination (INFJ—introversion, intuition, feeling, judging—for example) so they
could more easily learn about one another and
themselves. This may even aid in the effort to
establish a sense of community in residence
halls when faced with a growing number of
single-occupancy suite-style rooms.

LIMITATIONS
There are some limitations in the current study
that should temper the conclusions. First,
the response rate for the 2009 sample was
not high (10%). This raises questions about
the generalizability of the results. However,
after changing recruiting strategies, the 2010

sample was larger (17%) and more representative of the population of students living on
campus, and very similar results were found.
Second, this study represents the population
of a single institution. Preferences may differ
at other institutions, and therefore the study
should be validated by expanding the population to residents of other similar institutions.
Third, the variables we chose to investigate
are specific to practitioners of interior design,
and we do not intend them to represent all the
factors involved in students’ housing choices.
Rather, they address student preferences for
different types of housing, and we believe that
this information will be useful for campus
planners and student affairs officers. Finally,
to avoid conflict with other surveys, this one
was administered only a few months after
classes began in the fall. This means that firstyear students had been on campus only three
months, and perhaps their choices and intentions would be different if they were surveyed
towards the end of their first year. As this
campus’s housing capacity does not allow for
first-year students to return to campus housing
in subsequent years, it is impossible to determine whether their actual choices to remain
on campus were reflected in their behavior the
following academic year.

CONCLUSION
Despite the limitations of the study, the results
were clear and straightforward. Students for
whom housing is important are more likely to
emphasize and choose a different set of residence hall characteristics such as size/type of
room, age of building, proximity/location of
building, and being able to be with friends/
roommates, compared to those for whom

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 39, No. 2 & Volume 40, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 39, No. 2 & Volume 40, No. 1