Talking Stick - March/April 2014 - 21

and parents who insist on a single
room. Understanding the positive
effect of living with a roommate can
help students and their parents better
understand the potential positive
outcomes of meeting new people and
learning how to live together.
One reason that single-occupancy
rooms may seem not only appealing
but also necessary to some is the
fact that Americans don't share
personal space as much as they
used to. According to U.S. Census

and 167,000 responses in the same
key areas. In order to best reveal
patterns in the data, it is important
to focus on some key areas, such as
the predictors for residents' learning
outcomes, perceptions of housing,
and retention. The relevant predictors
in the discussion of room type would
be learning-personal interactions,
satisfaction with room and floor
environment, and learning-diverse
interactions. Since 1998, the top
predictor for student satisfaction has

room setups with a community
bath to apartment-room types for all
residents and specifically for first-year
students.
Another assessment of this data
might look at how what a campus
offers in terms of room and bathroom
types impacts other factors like
recruiting students to the campus.
In the 2008 EBI Chief Housing
Officers (CHOs) Survey of 261
respondents, 82 percent of CHOs
believed that traditional rooms are

. . . Though housing professionals haVe Made iMproVeMenTs in how
sTudenTs perceiVe Their floor as a posiTiVe liVing enVironMenT,
They are Making less progress in how sTudenTs see iT as a space for
personal and diVerse inTeracTions.

data, the average home has three
to four bedrooms and two to three
bathrooms - for only 2.6 people.
Consequently, for some students,
living in a residence hall may be their
first experience sharing a room or
bathroom.
Having access to a large data
set, such as that published by
EBI, is invaluable when looking at
nationwide trends in room types and
resident satisfaction. The entire 2012
ACUHO-I/EBI Resident Assessment
data set represents the participation
of 276 institutions and 322,600
respondents. For the purpose of
discussion here, the 2012 data - from
177,000 responses in key areas -
were matched with the data from
the 2007 ACUHO-I/EBI Resident
Assessment: 136 similar institutions

been personal interactions, followed
by satisfaction with room and floor
environment and diverse interactions.
Scores from the 2012 respondents
were higher than those for the 2007
respondents in all three of these
areas; these scores revealed a 2.8
percent increase in satisfaction with
room and floor environment, with
only a 0.7 percent increase in diverse
interactions and a 0.4 percent increase
in personal interactions. This suggests
that, though housing professionals
have made improvements in how
students perceive their floor as a
positive living environment, they are
making less progress in how students
see it as a space for personal and
diverse interactions. Additionally,
comparing these two data sets shows a
continued shift away from traditional

appropriate for first-year students,
while 60 percent believed that
individual contract apartments are
inappropriate. Yet at the same time,
27 percent believed that traditional
rooms do not contribute to student
recruitment, and 56 percent believed
that super suites would. However,
the opinions about what might better
support recruitment do not match
the data revealing what room types
students actually live in. The survey
shows that 52 percent of first-year
students reported living in traditional
room set-ups with community
bathrooms, while only 7 percent lived
in apartments; meanwhile, 21 percent
of juniors and seniors reported living
in traditional rooms, while 47 percent
lived in apartments. Not surprisingly,
first-year students and sophomores
March + april 2014

21
Talking Stick - March/April 2014

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