The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 37, No. 2 - 96

James H. Banning • Linda Kuk

(Jennings, 2005; Weaver, 2005). Other dissertations that explored staffing issues focused on resident hall assistants: One looked at the complexity of their roles (Crandall, 2004), and the other looked at the issue of alcohol from the resident assistant perspective (King, 2007).

The issue of diversity was a major research focus, especially as it related to the campus climate within residential environments and to staff training . The cumulative results from these studies revealed a commitment to ensuring that a positive experience extends to all students . Increased diversity in staff and increased diversity training for staff were perceived to be a part of this commitment .

Student success. Six dissertations focused on the campus housing experience and student success in terms of academic retention (Clark, 2003), student development (Griswold, 2008), and greater involvement and integration in campus life (Baker, 2006; Layman, 2005). However, this positive correlation was not reported by Garrard (2006). One study focused specifically on the importance of housing programs for rural community college success (Moeck, 2005). Administrative and technology issues.
Administrative issues were addressed by six dissertations: outsourcing (De Capua, 2006), the role of housing websites (Nedorost, 2007), the effectiveness of alcohol policies (Wolfe, 2003), and staff training (Baumann, 2006; Fitzpatrick, 2004). Finally, Elmahdi (2003) addressed the role of technology in the lives of residence hall students.

Given that many of the studies surveyed students and many utilized a comparative design, a larger number of quantitative studies would be expected. Again, as one might expect, the qualitative studies were focused on individual and group experiences. The theoretical frameworks used to guide the housing dissertation research were grouped into three major categories. The first category included those theories that were general in nature and typically reflected major works in student affairs. This would include the contributions of involvement theory, learning community theory, social norms theory, multicultural identity development theory, and person-environment theory. These theoretical approaches are often invoked in the higher education/student affairs research literature.

DISCuSSION
This study was based upon dissertations written by a similar number of males and females who sought doctoral degrees that contributed to the research base for college and university housing. Ph.D. and Ed.D. degrees were nearly evenly divided, and the authors used both quantitative and qualitative methods for their research. The lower number of dissertations based on qualitative research does not reflect the national trend toward increasing use of this kind of research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2002).
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 37, No. 2

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