The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 33

Selecting Resident Assistants

begin modifying the presented structure,
since no individual component of the selection
process accounted for more than 4% of the
variance in RA performance. Further investigation into the individual rubric components
may yield more significant results. A competency-based model of skill assessment and performance evaluation may demonstrate higher
predictability of variance between the two. For
example, summing rubric components from
a specific competency area (administrative
skill, diversity or social justice, or general
leadership) across all interview components
(application, individual interview, and group
interview) may more accurately predict RA
performance in those same competency areas.
Research in other fields has demonstrated
that certain areas within competency-based
performance appraisals have a significant
predicting power for performance (Dainty,
Cheng, & Moore, 2005); thus, developing and
assessing relevant competencies in the field of
college and university housing is worth further
exploration. Similarly, some group interview
activities used in the selection process may not
be appropriately designed to assess candidate
skills leading to future job performance. Investigating each interview activity is recommended to ensure that the activity's instrument is a
valid measurement tool.
Alternatively, since individual structured
interviews offered the most, albeit slight, predictive power of future RA performance, it
may be worth exploring the expansion of this
portion of the selection process. Anecdotally,
in the current state of RA selection processes,
it is unreasonable to think that a single individual interview (scoring in five areas) can
accurately predict the performance of an RA

in greater than 10 performance evaluation
categories by itself; however, collecting specific categorical competency scores across multiple methods may be one way to strengthen the
assessment of candidates due to the specificity
of the rubric components and the increased
number of scores per category.
Research often suggests that additional
(or alternative) metrics be included in RA selection processes. For instance, some studies
recommend using emotional intelligence as a
factor when making hiring decisions (Jaeger &
Caison, 2006; O'Boyle et al., 2011), yet no re-

. . . since individual structured
interviews offered the most, albeit
slight, predictive power of future
RA performance, it may be worth
exploring the expansion of this
portion of the selection process.

search has been presented to demonstrate the
impact of this metric within the RA selection
process. Practitioners and coordinators of RA
selection processes should explore additional
ways of evaluating candidates and documenting the collected data for further analysis.
Housing professionals would benefit from
more comprehensive application and documentation methods, even if only for departmental data consumption to inform their own
processes. Too much time and too many reV O L U M E 4 2 , NO. 3 * 2 0 1 6

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

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