The Psychosocial Effect of Residentially-Based Learning Communities on First Year Honors Students in a Highly Selective Private University

Abstract

Colleges and universities in the United States are currently in the midst of a debate on how to integrate students' academic and social lives in a manner similar to the centuries old model of Oxford and Cambridge. One of the major initiatives by colleges and universities is the re-establishment of residentially-based learning communities whose use has ebbed and flowed throughout the history of American higher education. The fundamental purpose of these communities is to facilitate intentional interactions with faculty and peers within the residence halls. The purpose of this study was to determine quantitatively if first year honors students at Boston College who participated in a residentially-based learning community exhibited greater psychosocial development versus first year honors students who reside in traditional residence halls. The Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Assessment (SDTLA), based on Chickering's theory of development, was employed to measure the psychosocial growth of the students. The experimental group consisted of 32 first year honors students who resided in the Honors House and the control group was comprised of 64 first year honors students who resided in the traditional residence halls. Results of the study revealed that residing in a residentially based learning community was not the sole contributing factor affecting the participants' psychosocial development. Male and female honors students who resided in the Honors House and the traditional halls experienced similar patterns of developmental growth over the course of their fall semester. It was also found that the mean scores of the participants in this study were consistently higher than the normative data on all tasks, subtasks and scales of the SDTLA. Despite the small sample size, the results appear to indicate that multiple factors, including the intentionality of Boston Colleges' Honors program and institutional value for student formation, contributed to the participant's psychosocial development.