The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 18

Rachael H. Stark * Sharon K. Anderson

Consequences of documenting residents.
Some participants stated that they considered
what residents might lose if they were documented and held accountable for a policy violation. This subcluster ﬁrst surfaced with certain
majors, such as education or premedical, and
also with residents who were athletes. Often,
these students were held to higher professional and academic standards in general, and
if they were found responsible for policy violations they might not be able to pursue their
chosen course of study. As Sam commented,
There were certain times when [it] falls on
the RA to, like . . . how important is this sort
of thing? How much do I want to get them in
trouble? I also . . . if I have a nursing or ed
major on the ﬂoor, or a premed type thing, I
will speciﬁcally pull them aside and be like, "I
guarantee I'm going to crack down as hard . . .

. . . some of the participants
may have felt social pressure to
perform in a way that would be
the most satisfactory to their peers
. . . even though it meant blatantly
violating their professional
responsibilities. Another possible
reason is the social connection
to their resident peers, which
suggested a sense of empathy
among the participants.

as possible on you because you need to make
sure you're not getting in trouble for these
sorts of things."
Arianna offered a similar comment:
I know what would happen on that side
if they were to get caught with it; they are
risking their scholarships, they are risking
their education here, they are risking a lot . . .
Let's say I do catch an athlete; oh well, I have
. . . Let's say I say to the person that I did
catch in that initial conversation . . . We say,
"I know that you are doing this, whatever; but
you know what the consequences would be if
I were to go further with this. Let's leave this
at 'right now' sort of thing."

DISCUSSION
In a meta-analysis study, Pascarella (1997)
noted that individuals who attend college
demonstrate signiﬁcantly greater growth in
moral development than individuals who do
not. He also suggested that students make signiﬁcant gains in principled moral reasoning
throughout their collegiate experience. This
outcome could mean that as individuals progress through their collegiate experience, they
will perform better (i.e., demonstrate moral
behavior) when faced with challenges related
to principled moral reasoning than will their
less tenured counterparts.
The ﬁndings of the current study may not
support the results of Pascarella's meta-analysis. Most of the participants we interviewed,
regardless of class rank, provided examples
of behavior indicating that they chose to not
uphold the rules and regulations of the residence hall as trained to do. There are several
different possible reasons for their course of
action. One is that they cared more about what

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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