The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 46, No. 1 - 41

Supervision and Job Satisfaction Factors of Residence Directors and Resident Assistants

When examining RA attrition, two important factors are intention of the staff member to
leave his or her position and their satisfaction
(Tull, 2006). Collecting data from staff who
have left a position can be difficult (Johnsrud &
Rosser, 1999). Using the Intention to Turnover
Scale gauges where the staff member currently
stands with whether he or she plans on leaving
the job. The negative correlation of RAs' perceived level of synergistic supervision received
with intention to turnover indicates a relationship between supervision and intention to
turnover between RDs and RAs. Tull (2006)
found a significant relationship between synergistic supervision and intention to turnover with entry-level professionals in student
affairs; however, the strength of the relationship was greater in this study. This indicates
that the importance of synergistic supervision
in decreasing the intention of staff to leave the
position may be greater for paraprofessionals
than for entry-level professionals.
While a number of researchers have examined job satisfaction as it relates to supervision in student affairs (Tull, 2006; Winston &
Creamer, 1997), the relationship between job
satisfaction in RAs and job satisfaction in RDs
has not been examined. In the current study,
no significant relationship was found between
job satisfaction of the RA and job satisfaction
of the RD. The job satisfaction for the overall
RD job may not have impacted their supervision of the staff and therefore did not impact
the job satisfaction of RAs. An RD may be very
satisfied with supervising the RA staff but not
satisfied in other areas of the job, or RDs with
lower job satisfaction may not have allowed
their lack of satisfaction to impact their performance in the position, including supervision.

Reducing role ambiguity and
role conflict and increasing job
satisfaction increases the likelihood
of keeping more experienced RAs
on staff.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
AND FUTURE RESEARCH
Synergistic supervision requires an investment of time by both supervisor and supervisee. Communication, personal and professional
development, and constructive feedback
are difficult to manage without consistently
meeting and developing a solid working relationship (Winston & Creamer, 1997). Staff supervision is an important responsibility of the
RD. The larger the staff that RDs supervise,
the less time they have available to spend with
each individual RA. Housing departments
should monitor what the ideal staff size is for
their campus based on the expectations they
have for RDs.
There have been few changes to basic
housing department responsibilities over the
past 30 years. Because RAs are the first line of
contact with students, it is important to have
experienced staff who are able to handle situations that can occur in a residential community (Blimling, 2003). Reducing role ambiguity
and role conflict and increasing job satisfaction
(Brecheisen, 2015) increases the likelihood of
keeping more experienced RAs on staff. Reducing the number of roles that RAs must
adopt could reduce the role conflict they expeV O L U M E 4 6 , NO. 1 * 2 0 1 9

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

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