The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 37, No. 2 - 79

Resident Assistants as Rule Enforcers

Resident assistants’ difficulty taking disciplinary action. Two items addressed
RAs’ difficulty taking disciplinary action. A close-ended item asked, “How difficult is it to take disciplinary action toward residents that you are more familiar with?” Response options were not at all difficult, a little difficult, somewhat difficult, quite difficult, and extremely difficult. An open-ended question concerned RAs’ selfidentified disciplinary style with respect to the enforcement of university policy. It asked respondents, “Please explain your answer . . . (i.e., why do you consider yourself to be either strict or lenient?).”

“ . . . there is definitely a separation [between the residents and me]. I don’t want to get too close [to them]. I’m not ‘one of the girls,’ because of the age difference. They invite me to hang out, but I choose not to, not necessarily because of age [i .e ., they are all first-year students], but because I’m a senior and my schedule is different . Also, because I’m an RA, they are hesitant to open up too much. They know I have authority over them.”

Qualitative Research Methods
The semi-structured interview protocol elaborated on the questionnaire’s themes. It focused on RAs’ roles, including their primary concerns as an RA, their primary responsibilities, their disciplinary styles, and how often they followed residential life rules. It also inquired about role conflict, such as RAs’ responsibilities in relation to student activities and to their roles as students and as hall mates, how they showed their residents they were “one of them,” how they felt about following disciplinary procedures, how often they wrote an incident report, and the criteria they used for determining whether to write an incident report. Finally, the interview asked about role distancing and about the activities RAs engaged in off campus, in other residence buildings, and while off duty. Role distancing is deliberately engaging in activities that indicate a person’s detachment from or de-emphasis of a role, or presenting oneself as being removed from or uncommitted to it (Goffman, 1961)—in this case, in relation to the role of rule enforcer or peer/friend.

Because one co-author was an undergraduate RA at the time of the research design, data collection, and initial data analysis, researcher bias potentially influenced the study, particularly with respect to its qualitative aspects. However, we took several steps to ensure the study’s integrity. Prior to undertaking it, the student was trained in social science research methodology by completing upper-division courses in sociological theory, research methods, and data analysis; designing and undertaking an independent graded project using semi-structured interviews to examine RAs’ handling of their residents’ alcohol policy violations (modeled in part after Rubington’s 1990 study); and being trained as an interviewer and interviewer supervisor for a large-scale

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

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