Thriving in Residence Life: The Impact of a Positive Psychology Intervention with Resident Assistants

Autor/in	Jaworski, Brian R.
Titel	Thriving in Residence Life: The Impact of a Positive Psychology Intervention with Resident Assistants
Quelle	(2018), (212 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
ISBN	978-0-4383-7579-6
Schlagwörter	Hochschulschrift; Dissertation; College Housing; Dormitories; College Students; Resident Advisers; Pretests Posttests; Experimental Groups; Control Groups; Personality Traits; Residential Programs; Program Implementation + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Thesis; Dissertations; Academic thesis; Studentenunterkunft; Student housing; Studentenwohnheim; Collegestudent; Individual characteristics; Personality characteristic; Persönlichkeitsmerkmal; Sozialer Wohnungsbau
Abstract	With the increasing cost of attendance and concerns regarding incoming student preparedness (Jackson & Kurlaender, 2013), administrators of U.S. colleges and universities are seeking ways to help more students be successful and persist to graduation. Although research has demonstrated the contribution of psychosocial factors to student success (Robbins et al., 2004), much of this research has measured personality traits rather than malleable characteristics. Thriving (Schreiner, 2010a) provided the conceptual framework for this study, as it measures malleable characteristics of being fully engaged in college life academically, socially, and psychologically. This study assessed the extent to which Resident Assistants (RA) could help students thrive through the implementation of residential life programs designed after positive psychology principles. Residential facilities are often staffed with RAs whose work could be leveraged toward areas of thriving, yet this connection remains largely unexplored. This study used a pretest-posttest experimental design with random assignment to condition to explore whether RAs trained in positive psychology principles could positively impact residential students' thriving. The independent variable in this study was whether or not the RA had participated in 4 hours of training that taught him or her to apply positive psychology principles to the role of the RA; the dependent variables were the M scores on the Thriving Quotient (TQ; Schreiner, 2012) and its five subscales. The TQ was administered to residential students at the beginning and end of the fall semester. A MANCOVA was conducted to determine whether the RA training had a significant impact on residents' thriving scores after controlling for their pretest levels of thriving; no significant differences were found between the treatment and control groups. A secondary analysis was then conducted through hierarchical multiple regression analyses to explore what contributed significantly to the variation in thriving levels among the residential students. The regression analysis revealed RA programming, spirituality, involvement with faculty, institutional integrity, and psychological sense of community contributed significantly to student thriving. The implications for practice that emerged from this study included ways of designing RA training to more effectively incorporate the significant pathways to thriving. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.] (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01