The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 1 - 19

The Development and Validation of the Secondary Trauma in Resident Assistants Scale

sible; or avoiding aspects of their job that reminded them of interactions with students.
Intrusive thoughts (INT). The INT items
measured the extent to which supporting
students experiencing various traumas had
left RAs unintentionally thinking about their
support of students who experienced trauma,
feeling tense when thinking about supporting
students who experienced trauma, or unable to
stop thinking about the details of the trauma
the student shared.

DATA ANALYSIS
For the initial validation of the instrument, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used. This
technique explores relationships between variables but does not assume a predetermined
number of factors. The sample for EFA comprised 208 individuals (N = 208). Researchers
applied an oblique rotation, more specifically
a Direct Oblimin rotation, due to anticipated
factors stemming from established frameworks regarding secondary traumatic stress
(Costello & Osborne, 2005; DeVellis, 2011;
MacCullum, Widaman, Zhang, & Hong,
1999). The researcher then used a Maximum
Likelihood Analysis to condense the original
33-item instrument into a series of linear uncorrelated components (Costello & Osborne,
2005). In order to determine reliability of
the instrument, and its subscales, Cronbach
alphas were calculated.
Whereas EFA attempts to reveal a set of
latent factors from a set of variables, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) begins with the assumption of a fixed number of latent factors. In
this study, CFA was used to investigate a first
order set of latent variables using results of the
EFA: NAMEX, NAMIN, AVD, and INT. After

performing the CFA, the four latent factors
were then used for a second CFA, assuming
that the four latent factors would reveal an additional second order latent factor: Secondary
Traumatic Stress (STS). The CFA sample was
composed of the same sample used for exploratory factor analysis (N = 208). The literature
reflects a debate regarding the appropriateness
of using the same participant sample for CFA
and EFA, but for the purposes of this study,
the sample was not split as the participant-toitem ratio would have been greatly diminished
(Costello & Osborne, 2005; Van Prooijen &
Van Der Kloot, 2001).
Finally, to illustrate discriminant and convergent validity, the researcher used bivariate
correlations to investigate the relationship
between the results of the instrument pilot and
the results of the adapted Secondary Trauma
Self-Efficacy scale (STSE), as well as the average
amount of time each participant reported supporting students in crisis. Findings from these
analyses are presented below.

RESULTS
Table 2 summarizes the frequency with which
sampled resident assistants supported students through a traumatic event, as well as
the frequency of particular types of traumatic
events. Of the types of student traumas listed,
sampled resident assistants responded that
the most frequently reported types of trauma
were death of a loved one (56.7%); family
issues (46.2%); suicidal ideations, attempts,
or completions (43.3%); and severe mental
health episodes (36.1%). Additionally, nearly
a third of respondents reported responding to
student crises as frequently as once a month
to every day.

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 1

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