The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 28

Stephen A. Berg * James C. Stoner

RESIDENT ASSISTANT SELECTION
Upcraft (1982) noted that RA selection processes focus on the assessment of various
candidate characteristics. In order to do this,
RA candidates are assessed through a variety
of methods, including structured interviews,
which can be defined as "a personally interactive process of one or more people asking questions orally to another person and evaluating
the answers for the purpose of determining the
qualifications of that person in order to make
employment decisions" (Levashina, Hartwell,
Morgeson, & Campion, 2014, p. 243). Hiring
practices outside of student affairs prefer interviewing as the method for evaluating candidates: "Managers and personnel officials,
especially those who are interviewers, tend to
believe that the interview is valid for predicting
future job performance" (McDaniel, Whetzel,
Schmidt, & Maurer, 1994, p. 599). Structured
interviews are often used to manage large
numbers of interviews by streamlining the
interview processes for those involved in the
evaluations of candidates. Many elements of a
structured interview, such as asking the same
question to each applicant, limiting followup questions, and ensuring the quality of the
questions, enhance the evaluation process
(Campion, Palmer, & Campion, 1997). These
elements are often used as a part of RA candidate evaluations because they allow for the
identification of candidates with desirable
traits while keeping the process equitable for
all candidates.
In addition to structured interviews, other
methods of evaluation such as written applications and role-playing are often utilized in the
RA selection process (Ostroth, 1981). This practice is supported by Stone and Hanson (2002)
28

who found that hiring processes utilizing a
variety of evaluation methods were preferred
by candidates because the processes provided
"opportunities to have their strengths balance
out their weaknesses" (p. 182). However,
having multiple components in the selection
processes can be costly. The additional time
and resources needed for such an undertaking only supports the claim that "Organizations pay tremendous amounts of money to
screen, hire and train talent" (Smailagic &
Wiggin, 2014, p. 47). An expected outcome of
a complex hiring process with multiple components would likely be that the hiring mechanisms would provide an indication of future
performance. However, research on the relationship between residence life staff selection
and staff performance is scarce, as illustrated
by Jaeger and Caison (2006) who stated, "we
still are not able to clearly identify, through
the selection process, those RAs that will be
successful in fulfilling the responsibilities set
forth in the RA job description" (p. 146).

RESIDENT ASSISTANT
PERFORMANCE
Researchers have previously focused on a
variety of factors contributing to the performance of RAs. Some studies looked at the
demographics and student status (Clark,
2008; Jaeger & Caison, 2006; Wu & Stemler,
2009) and personality traits of RAs (Deluga &
Masson, 2000) as they related to RA job performance. Other studies investigated emotional intelligence, defined as "the subset of social
intelligence that involves the ability to monitor
one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use
this information to guide one's thinking and

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3

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