The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 62

Krista M. Soria * Leonard Taylor, Jr.

intensive programmatic efforts such as livinglearning programs, little research exists that
describes whether strengths-related programmatic efforts are associated with ﬁrst-year
students' engagement and retention. The
purpose of the present study is to expand the
literature regarding the effects of programmatic measures designed to increase students' self-awareness and their engagement.
Speciﬁcally, the goal of this study was to
examine whether one institution's efforts to
infuse strengths-based practices in residence
halls are associated with ﬁrst-year students'
engagement and retention to their second
year of study.

STRENGTHS-BASED PRACTICES
IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Grounded in the frameworks of positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000),
strengths-based initiatives are increasingly utilized in higher education institutions across
the nation. Strengths-based initiatives and
approaches are framed by the belief that individuals possess resources that can be leveraged
to promote success in everyday life (Soria &
Stubbleﬁeld, 2014). Educators using strengthsbased frameworks believe that students carry
the potential to achieve excellence in their daily
lives. Strengths-based practitioners help their
students to not only discover their strengths,
but also to learn how to apply their strengths in
healthy and productive ways (Lopez & Louis,
2009). While many assessments can help
college students discover their strengths, the
most popular assessment used in higher education is the Clifton StrengthsFinder® (Louis,
2012). More than one million college students
have taken the StrengthsFinder®, an assess-

ment that helps individuals to identify their
personal ﬁve most salient talent themes out of
34 natural talent themes (The Gallup Corporation, 2013). A talent theme is deﬁned as a "naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling,
and behavior" (Anderson, 2005, p. 185), which,
when reﬁned over time, can be developed into
strengths (Hodges & Harter, 2005; The Gallup
Corporation, 2013). Individuals' top ﬁve talent
themes are often colloquially referred to as
one's "top ﬁve strengths," and, as a consequence, we employ similar language throughout this study.

The culture of strengths-based
programming was deeply embedded
in other areas of housing and
residence life; for example, resident
directors often wore "ask me about
my top ﬁve strengths" buttons to
develop connections with residents
around this common language.

Bowers and Lopez (2010) documented
some of the ways that colleges and universities across the United States have embraced
strengths-based approaches, including within
summer orientation, mentorship, career services, and informal and formal discussions
in a variety of contexts. Stebleton, Soria, and
Albecker (2012) further demonstrated the ben-

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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