The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2 - 34

James C. Stoner * Yi Zhang

coding (e.g., "At community social gatherings,
no one recognizes me"), where "strongly disagree" was coded as 5 and "strongly agree"
was coded as 1. Eight of the items were specific to the awareness component of mattering (α = .770), six items were specific to the
reliance component (α = .752), and 10 items
were specific to the importance component (α
= .801). Because the instrument was modified,
the reliability of each component of mattering
was tested by conducting Cronbach's alpha.
The results suggest that the instrument had
an acceptable level of consistency (George &
Mallery, 2003; Johnson & Christensen, 2008)
for awareness (α = .770), reliance (α = .752), and
importance (α = .801).

DATA ANALYSIS
RAs were assigned a unique number so their
responses could be linked to another dataset
containing the number of residents in their
communities and RA demographic data. RAs
could choose to decline to link their data. Once
the data were synced between datasets, the
unique number was removed to ensure the
anonymity of the responses.
Two research questions were addressed in
this study:
1) To what extent does mattering of apartment
RAs differ from residence hall RAs?
2) Is there a relationship between RA
mattering and individual community size and
overall area size, respectively?
Descriptive analyses were first conducted to
provide an overview of the sample. To answer
the first research question, independent
samples t-tests were conducted to compare the
means of RA mattering in different residential
facilities. To answer the second research ques-

34

tion, two Pearson correlation analyses were
calculated to identify the relationships between
RA mattering and the individual community
size and the overall area size, respectively.

RESULTS
Descriptive Analysis. The sample reflected the
gender demographics of the institutional
student population: 33 males (44.6%) and
41 females (55.4%). Nineteen RAs identified
as African-American or Black (26.8%), 13 as
Asian or Pacific Islander (18.3%), 15 as Hispanic (21.1%), and 24 as White (33.8%). There
were 48 domestic RAs (64.9%) and 26 international RAs (35.1%). Finally, 23 RAs worked
in apartments (29.1%) while 56 RAs worked
in residence halls (70.9%). The average age of
apartment RAs was 21.13 while the average age
of residence hall RAs was 20.98. The sample
included 48 participants (64.86%) who had
more than one full semester of experience as
an RA and 26 participants (35.14%) who had
less than one full semester of experience.
	 RA Placement and Mattering: This study
first sought to investigate if there is a difference in mattering between residence hall RAs
and apartment RAs. Independent sample t-tests
were conducted to compare the components of
mattering (awareness, importance, and reliance)
and the total mattering score of RAs serving in
apartments and residence halls (see Table 1).
	 There was a significant difference in awareness scores, with residence hall RAs (M = 33.98,
SD = 3.807) scoring higher than apartment
RAs (M = 29.65, SD = 5.236), t (77) = -4.100,
p < .001. Residence hall RAs (M = 38.54, SD =
4.537) had a higher score in importance compared with apartment RAs (M = 32.00, SD =
6.453) and the difference was statistically sig-

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

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