Developing an Instrument to Examine Student–Faculty Interaction in Faculty-in-Residence Programs

Research highlights student residential communities as environments rich in potential for the development of student–faculty relationships and related learning outcomes (Garrett & Zabriskie, 2003; Golde & Pribbenow, 2000; Kuh & Hu, 2001; Mara & Mara, 2010). One attempt to encourage student–faculty relationships is to place faculty homes in student residential communities (Sriram, Shushok, Scales, & Perkins, 2011). These faculty-in-residence programs are intended to promote positive student outcomes by amplifying the informal and formal interactions between students and faculty. Faculty-in-residence programs are a distinct feature of residential colleges (Ryan, 2001), but more recently, institutions of higher education have created more opportunities for faculty to reside in various types of living-learning programs, including theme housing and first-year experience communities. Within the context of this study, faculty-in-residence are defined as faculty members who live in a residential community full-time with their family and seek to actively contribute to the development of students within the community. However, little has been done to examine the effects of faculty-in-residence programs or to develop a theoretical model explaining different types of student–faculty interactions within these programs.

Faculty-in-residence programs aim to contribute positively to learning outcomes such as student persistence and holistic development (Cotten & Wilson, 2006; Kuh & Hu, 2001; Garrett & Zabriskie, 2003). Students have much to gain from both informal and formal interactions with faculty, even if they are not explicitly aware of the benefits (Cotten & Wilson, 2006; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005). Substantive student–faculty interactions that are high in both quality and frequency are shown to have the greatest impact on student learning outcomes (Cox & Orehovec, 2007; Kuh & Hu, 2001). However, as Kuh & Hu (2001) suggest, “ . . . for most students most of the time, the more interactions with faculty the better” (p. 329).

When faculty repeatedly initiate contact within the student environment (e.g., residence hall or dining hall), students report that student–faculty barriers decrease as students increasingly perceive the faculty member as a more relatable person (Cox & Orehovec, 2007; Mara & Mara, 2010). Faculty-in-residence programs should significantly and positively impact the student experience, but little has been done to examine student–faculty interactions in communities with faculty-in-residence programs. This study reports the creation and validation of a psychometric instrument developed to examine student–faculty interactions in faculty-in-residence programs.

Conceptual Framework

Similarly to Cotten and Wilson (2006), we initially conceptualized student–faculty interaction in two distinct categories: informal engagement (nonprogrammatic interaction) and formal engagement (programmatic interaction). We found this distinction important because informal interactions represent organic interactions between students and faculty that likely increase as a result of living together, whereas formal interactions represent more structured interactions that require planning an event or program. We expected that both informal and formal interaction would occur in meaningful ways within faculty-in-residence programs.

In addition to distinguishing between informal and formal interactions, we sought to form a typology and continuum of student–faculty interaction. Our framework was informed by Cox and Orehovec’s (2007) qualitative study of faculty involvement within a residential community, from which resulted a continuum of student–faculty interaction that ranges from disengaged (no interaction) to mentoring relationships between faculty and students. We organized student–faculty interaction into 3 distinct categories of engagement, including academic, social, and deeper life interactions. We defined deeper life interactions as those that occur around life’s big questions and meaning-making. Such meaning-making involves awareness of how one composes reality, an ongoing dialogue toward truth, and acting in ways that are satisfying and just (Parks, 2000; Astin, Astin, & Lindholm, 2011). Figure 1 provides a visual representation of our initial conceptual framework.

In addition to the type (formal or informal) and nature (academic, social, or deeper life) of student–faculty interactions, we also sought to examine student awareness and perception of the faculty-in-residence program. We created 4 additional variables to measure student knowledge of the faculty-in-residence position (knowledge); perceived value of the faculty-in-residence position (value); level of comfort in approaching the faculty-in-residence (comfort...