The Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1 - 51

Relationships and Learning Beyond the Classroom

identify and recruit students through recommendations by FIRs and outreach to potential
participants through email (Patton, 2002).
In identifying participants, we sought
information-rich cases related to the phenomenon of faculty-student interaction in the
context of the FIR program. The students interviewed included one female foreign exchange

. . . programs developed by the
FIRs were unique because they
were more inclusive of the whole
residential community.

student from Germany working on her Master's degree, one male undergraduate foreign
exchange student from India, one Black female
undergraduate student, one Hispanic female
undergraduate student, two White male undergraduate students, and one Black male undergraduate student.
One participant disclosed that he was
autistic. One participant identified as queer.
Three participants reported experiencing
anxiety or depression during their time living
on campus, and at least one sought services
at the university counseling center to treat
depression. Three participants reported that
they were first-generation college students.

Data Collection
The semi-structured interviews explored how
frequently the students interacted with FIRs,
the types of interactions students had with
FIRs, and how these interactions impacted

students' social-emotional and academic development. The interviews also explored ways
students and FIRs formed relationships that
allowed the FIRs to serve as intellectual role
models. All participants were asked four questions, with other questions arising based on
their responses: (1) What are some ways interacting with FIRs impacted your experiences as
a student? (2) What are some ways interacting
with FIRs impacted your social life? (3) Do you
feel interacting with FIRs enhanced your social-emotional growth? If so, how? (4) Do you
feel that interacting with FIRs enhanced your
academic growth? If so, how?

Data Analysis
The conceptual model presented above, which
provides a typology of faculty-student interaction (Table 1), was utilized as an a priori coding
scheme in the analysis of the interview data.
Using NVivo 11 software, two coders separately
read the transcripts and coded any references
to faculty-student interaction using the types of
interaction in the typology. The initial coding
resulted in a Cohen's kappa indicating beyondchance moderate agreement of 71%. Next, the
researchers grouped the coded responses according to common themes that were related
to the central research question and the subset
of questions. We analyzed transcripts as we
continued to collect data to compare our initial
assumptions with emerging themes and new
insights. We adjusted subsequent interviews
to further explore these themes and insights
(Golde & Pribbenow, 2000).

FINDINGS
Several themes arose from our analysis that together illustrate the impact of faculty-student
interaction on academic and social-emotional
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Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 1

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