Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3 - 38

your hall? " Another example is, " What are
your thoughts on community (definition, importance, etc.). How would you plan to build
community on your floor or within your
hall? " The job expectation of building community and outreach to the residents as RAs
was prevalent in the questions in this area.

The Role Modeling code was used for
questions that either directly asked about
the candidate's thoughts on being a role
model or more indirectly asked about representing the department or being a resource.
For example, one question under this code
asks, " What does being a role model mean
to you? " This is an example of directly asking the candidate about being a role model,
which was a common approach. An example
of an indirect approach is, " How do you feel
about being a representative of Housing and
Residence Life at all times? " While not specifically asking about being a role model, this
type of question was determined as trying to
get at the same information as the direct role
modeling questions.

Competencies
Competency questions appeared to gather information from the candidates about current
skills and abilities they have that align with
the responsibilities of the RA position. The
13 codes that emerged under the Competency theme comprised 48.5% (n = 97) of the
total questions reviewed. The most frequent
Competency codes were: Diversity Awareness
(n = 15); Conflict Management (n = 12); Time
Management (n = 12); and Team Player (n = 9).

A total of 12 questions fell under Conflict Management. Several of the questions
were centered on conflict with other team
members (e.g., " If a conflict were to arise on
your staff team, how would you handle it? " ).
Other questions were about conflict management in general, such as, " Describe a situation in which you had a disagreement with
someone and chose to confront that person.
Describe the conversation and the outcome. "
This RA competency is specific to the candidate's ability to resolve conflict and not about
helping residents encountering conflict with
others as that was coded under the Job Expectation code Mediation.

Two areas had similarities but received
separate codes: Time Management and Prioritization. Time Management questions ask
how candidates balance their time while
having multiple responsibilities (e.g., " What
are your extracurricular activities and how do
you balance them with work and school? " )
while Prioritization questions ask candidates
how they order and rank competing priorities. While an argument could be made that
Time Management overlaps with Prioritization responses, the researchers determined
the central point was different for each code.
To illustrate, an example of a Prioritization
question was, " How would you prioritize
your various commitments including being
a student, a Resident Advisor and other campus obligations and decide what tasks are
most important? " This question is specifically asking for the candidate to list what is
most important to complete first rather than
balancing all the responsibilities.

RAs possessing the ability to relate closely with students by
offering resources on how to be involved, how to excel in classes,
and how to become a leader on campus are desired.
Volume 47, No. 3 * 2021

Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Vol. 47 No. 3