The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 46, No. 1 - 37

Supervision and Job Satisfaction Factors of Residence Directors and Resident Assistants

was determined using Cronbach's alpha coefficient .94 with a range of correlation from .44
to .75 (Saunders et al., 2000).
Job satisfaction and intention to turnover
were measured using the MOAQ (Cammann,
Fichman, Jenkins, & Klesh, 1983). Bowling and
Hammond (2008) found the mean sampleweighted internal consistency reliability of the
MOAQ job satisfaction scale to be .84. The
scale positively correlated with satisfaction with
work itself (r = .74) and supervision (r = .57) and
negatively correlated with job tension (r = -.42)
and depression (r = -.41). Reliability for the Intention to Turnover Scale was established by a
coefficient alpha with an internal reliability of
.83 and validated with correlations with job satisfaction (r = -.58) and job involvement (r = -.27)
measures (Cammann et al., 1983).
The RCAS, developed by House, Schuler,
and Levanoni (1983), consists of 18 items (11
for ambiguity and 7 for conflict) to measure
the level of role ambiguity and conflict experienced by employees in a complex organization.
The scale was developed in order to update a
former scale that was criticized because the
role conflict items were written with a perceived negative connotation (stress worded)
and the ambiguity items were worded positively (comfort worded) (House et al., 1983).
The revised RCAS balanced the items so that
they consisted of both stress and comfort-type
words (Field, 2002; House et al., 1983). The
reliability of the scale's Cronbach's alpha was
.90 for role ambiguity and .84 for role conflict
(House et al., 1983). Both role ambiguity (r =
.60) and conflict (r = .32) correlated negatively
with job satisfaction (p < .01) (O'Driscoll &
Beehr, 1994).

Treatment of Data
The surveys were sent electronically to 297 RAs
and 32 RDs. A total of 63 RAs (21%) and 20
RDs responded (62.5%), for a total of 83 participants. Data were analyzed by using Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version
21. Descriptive statistics were run for each test.
The research questions were analyzed using
the Pearson correlation of the means of the
composite scores for the given scale (see Table
1). The range of the correlations valued from +1
to -1, with 0 indicating no covariability (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2013).
In this study, six different measures were
utilized, including the following scales: Synergistic Supervision, Intention to Turnover, Job
Satisfaction, Role Conflict, and Role Ambiguity.
The Synergistic Supervision Scale consisted of 22 items on a 5-point scale ranging
from never to always (Saunders et al., 2000).
The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for this scale
was .922. Consistent with previous studies, the
SSS was above the .7 reliability threshold (Devillis, 2003). There were two scales that came
from the Michigan Organizational Assessment
Questionnaire: the Intention to Turnover Scale
and the Job Satisfaction Scale (Cammann et al.,
1983). The Intention to Turnover Scale consisted of three items on a 7-point scale. Two of the
items ranged from not at all likely to extremely
likely, and one item ranged from strongly agree
to strongly disagree. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was .844. The Job Satisfaction Scale consisted of three items ranging from strongly agree
to strongly disagree. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the scale was .902. The Role Conflict
and Role Ambiguity scales consisted of 11 and
7 items, respectively. For all items the 7-point
scale ranged from strongly disagree to strongly
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 46, No. 1

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