The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2 - 20

Rishi Sriram * Frank Shushok, Jr. * Laine Scales

DISCUSSION

Implications For Current Practice

Several studies in the current literature demonstrate the positive impact of living on campus.
Researchers have not studied, however, the
views of housing professionals in four critical areas: the importance of students living on
campus, the role of residence life professionals as educators, faculty engagement outside of
the classroom, and the design of residential facilities. Every campus is different, with its own
unique mission and culture. Therefore, an appropriate way to analyze administrator perceptions of the residential experience is to gather
information on how they view the current
status of their institution in these four areas as
well as their desired status for their campus in
these areas. The study reports the development
of the Campus Residential Experience Survey -
an instrument that uncovers these underlying
paradigms and attitudes in a valid and reliable
manner.

Shushok, Scales, Sriram, & Kidd, (2011) wrote
about three implicit paradigms commonly
used with regard to on-campus residential
environments: the sleep-and-eat model, the
market model, and the learning model. These
three paradigms illustrate how differing
mental models within and among colleges and
universities (about which campus administrators and educators often lack awareness) result
in profound consequences for how students
experience residence life. While one campus
embraces an attitude that separates academics and student affairs, isolating the residential
experience and minimizing opportunities for
student learning, another campus successfully
integrates intellectual life into the residential
experience. Unearthing these assumptions,
which often are unconscious, with the Campus
Residential Experience Survey may lead college
leaders to be more thoughtful in their discussions, planning, and implementation of the
residential experience. The Campus Residential Experience Survey is a tool that can serve as
the basis for meaningful conversation among
campus leaders. By eliciting responses to
the four areas - the importance of living on
campus, the role of residence life professionals as educators, faculty engagement outside
of the classroom, and the design of residential facilities - campus leaders can directly
discuss their attitudes regarding current and
desired status of these important aspects of
residential life.

Our study pertained to the creation of a
robust instrument with evidence of both validity and reliability. Scholars have lamented that
a major deficiency in the higher education literature is the lack of attention to measurement
issues (Porter, 2011; Smart, 2005). We made
efforts to demonstrate evidence of content validity, construct validity, and reliability in our
instrument, leading to a 40-item instrument
measuring eight latent variables. Results from
the principal components analysis indicate
that this instrument has construct validity.
Results from Cronbach's alpha reliability analyses indicate that the scale is reliable, with each
subscale having alphas ranging from .73 to .87.
The Campus Residential Experience Survey can
be used to improve practice and further knowledge through research.
20

In practice, this instrument can be utilized
to conduct a cultural audit, detecting what
student affairs administrators at all levels
think about residential education on their
own campus. The resulting data can be used

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2

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