The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 45, No. 1 - 48

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10% decline in the proportion of ﬁrst-year
residence students housed in traditional-style
residences from 2008 to 2013 (from 69% to
59%, respectively). The number of ﬁrst-year
residence students housed in hybrid/connected units increased substantially over this
time period, rising from 7% in 2008 to 15%
in 2013. More than half of ﬁrst-year students
in residence lived in single rooms (57%), and
most ﬁrst-year students in residence were required to have a meal plan (92%).

Variables
Anonymized data from each institution included the following:
t %FNPHSBQIJDJOGPSNBUJPOHFOEFSBOE
date of birth
t "DBEFNJDCBDLHSPVOEJOGPSNBUJPOGFF
status (international/domestic), high
school GPA, program of study, institution/
campus, and cohort year
t -JWJOHTJUVBUJPOSFTJEFODFIBMMOBNF
t "DBEFNJDPVUDPNFJOGPSNBUJPOmSTUZFBS
GPA, retention to second year, graduation
date
From this data, variables were cleaned and
coded for analysis. Sex was coded as either
male or female based on biological sex assigned at birth, as an alternative non-binary
gender format was not collected by the universities at the time the study began. Age was
derived from the date of birth and was calculated as of September 1 of the cohort year. It
was then coded into a six-level factor (18 or
younger, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 or older) to capture
non-linear effects of age on the outcomes of
interest. A student's fee status was coded as in-

. . . students who lived in
residence had higher rates of
retention to the second year than
did their off-campus peers for all
JOTUJUVUJPOTDPNCJOFE

ternational or domestic. High school GPA was
included in the study as a variable to examine
the academic achievement of students before
they entered university. It was expressed as a
percentage and was mean-centered to allow for
meaningful interpretation of model intercepts.
It was also scaled (i.e., divided) by ﬁve so that
the parameter estimates represent the expected change in the outcome for a ﬁve-percentage
point change in high school average (instead
of for a one-percentage point change in high
school average).
For the most accurate comparison among
the ﬁve participating institutions, program
of study was used to categorize students into
one of four faculty groupings: Arts, Humanities, and Social Science; Engineering; Health
Sciences; and Science. For the variable of
institution/campus, one of the universities
had two distinct campuses that were treated
separately in the study, resulting in six campuses. Each campus was randomly assigned
a number so that the identity of each would
not be known. The cohort year was recorded
for each student based on the year in which
they entered ﬁrst-year studies at their respective university (2008 to 2013). Students were
classiﬁed as in residence if they had lived in

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 45, No. 1

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