The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 37, No. 2 - 43

Resident Assistant Cultural Diversity Questionnaire

College and university students who had been involved in frequent discussions of racial or ethnic issues, attended racial awareness workshops, socialized frequently with people from other racial groups, enrolled in ethnic studies courses, and participated in discussions of political or social issues “were likely to place higher relative value on the goal of helping to promote racial understanding.”

revealed that the perceptions of residence hall staff differed by cultural groups. As Johnson and Kang explained, Factor analysis confirmed the five components (need for cultural diversity training, confidence working with culturally diverse residents, belief in the existence of racism in residence halls, confidence to handle racial conflict, and belief in the power of the RA position to bring about cultural understanding). Using principle extraction method and varimax rotation, the five components accounted for 53% of the variance. The items comprising the RACD score yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of .73. (p. 33) As the reliability and validity of the items of the instrument were established in a previous study (Johnson & Kang, 2006), the purpose of the present study was to investigate the original five-factor structure of the RACD.

METHOD
sions of racial or ethnic issues, attended racial awareness workshops, socialized frequently with people from other racial groups, enrolled in ethnic studies courses, and participated in discussions of political or social issues “were likely to place higher relative value on the goal of helping to promote racial understanding” (Milem, 1994, p. 79). Each of the five components of the RACD has four related items, resulting in a total of 20 items that assessed RA confidence in addressing issues of cultural diversity. Content validity for these five components and the specific items developed to explore them was established (Johnson & Kang, 2006). This validation was based on a review of related literature and on the findings of the Perception of Racial Climate Questionnaire (PRCQ), which

Participants
Three hundred sixty-four resident assistants from three universities, each with more than 3,000 undergraduate residents, participated in this study during the spring term of 2003. This represents a return rate of 87% of the total number of RAs at the three institutions. A non-response to any of the demographic or perception items did not disqualify a questionnaire from use; therefore, the usable rate of the questionnaires was 100%.

Procedures
The RACD was administered in spring 2003 at three predominantly White institutions. Two of the institutions were located in the Midwest and the other in the East. The sample included all the undergraduate RAs who were

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 37, No. 2

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