Residents Assistants’ Leadership Efficacy

Abstract

Resident assistants play an indisputably important role in college and university housing as they help to connect residents with campus resources (Servaty-Seib & Taub, 2010), socialize and develop relationships with other students (Manata et al., 2017; Roland & Agosto, 2017), and integrate within the greater college community (Blimling, 2010).

Resident assistants also promote greater university outcomes by facilitating students’ engagement and retention through programming (Soria & Taylor, Jr., 2016), imparting university values, and promoting student learning outcomes (Healea, 2006).

Yet, while much is known about how resident assistants contribute to their institutions, little is known about the developmental outcomes resident assistants gain through their experiences (Martin & Blechschmidt, 2014). Specifically, even though leadership is often an implicit expectation or explicit requirement in resident assistants’ position descriptions (Benjamin & Davis, 2016), little is known about the potential for resident assistants to develop leadership outcomes from their paraprofessional training, interpersonal interactions or relationships, and leadership experiences.

Researchers have left breadcrumbs pointing toward the potential impact of serving as a resident assistant on students’ leadership efficacy; however, there is still a void in terms of understanding whether serving in a resident assistant capacity itself is associated with leadership efficacy. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether resident assistants have a significantly different leadership efficacy compared to their peers who are not resident assistants.