This document discusses engaging senior resident assistants (RAs) during mandatory fall RA training at a university. It aims to analyze what senior RAs learned from the previous year's training, understand their employment and professional development needs, and identify how to best involve them. Based on surveys and interviews of senior RAs, the study found they want more involvement in training sessions and consolidated sessions to be more productive. It recommends having senior RAs help lead sessions, making returner sessions more practical, active, and incorporating campus resources to improve engagement of senior resident assistants.

1. Engaging senior Resident Assistants during fall RA training
executive summary
Resident Assistants attend a mandatory fall RA training every Au-gust
as either 1) new RAs or 2) returner RAs. How can the Dept. of
Housing use its time and the knowledge of resident assistants with five
semesters of service or more, better known as senior RAs, during fall
RA training?
The goals of this study are to:
• Analyze what senior RAs learned from fall 2014 RA training
• Understand the employment and professional development needs of
senior RAs
• Identify how to best engage senior RAs during fall RA training
sessions
Returning RAs who complete RA training will be able to:
• List the expectations the DOH has of them as returning RAs
• Identity at least one approach to assisting their area as returning
RAs
• Complete refresher trainings on crises and conflict management,
programming and administrative duties
“I don’t think I learned one new thing in training.”
“There were many sessions where I saw many students disengaged
from being already well aware of how the topic works.”
“Don’t make senior returners attend the same session they’ve been to
the past two fall trainings.”
Returners’ commentary from the Fall 2014 RA Training survey
Methodology
183 RAs 26 senior RAs 13 survey & 5 group interview participants
A Qualtrics survey was emailed to all senior RAs with questions gauging
amount of information learned and satisfaction with fall 2014 RA training.
As an RA with five semesters of service or more, please indicate your
level of agreement with the following statements:
Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
Because of fall 2014 RA training, I feel more connected to the Dept. of
Housing than previous trainings.
Because of fall 2014 RA training, I can identify at least one of the
Dept. of Housing’s values/guiding principles.
A Group Interview was conducted after the Qualtrics survey closed
to expand on findings in the survey and generate ideas on how to
improve fall RA training for senior RAs. All senior RAs were emailed a
Doodle poll link to sign up for the interview, and the interview was
capped at 5 RAs.
On the Qualtrics survey, participants indicated they wanted to re-move
“Round Robin” sessions. What should substitute this?
How should social justice sessions be implemented since it is becoming
a critical part of the RA job?
What is the most conductive environment for learning?
Quantitative: Likert Scale; ratings; comparisons Qualitative: commentary; lists; names
findings Recommendations
• Senior RAs want to be involved in the training sessions
• Overall, satisfied with information learned and topics presented
• Majority were dissatisfied with time spent
• Returners want consolidated training sessions so they can be more
productive in the halls
• Theme should be incorporated more
• Staff should provide food throughout the day
involvement = engagement: Professional staff should reach out
to returning senior RAs during the summer to see if they are interested
in helping lead or present a training session
practicality: Training sessions for returners should lean toward situa-tional
reviews rather than protocol reviews
Use campus resources - literally: The Training Committee should
incorporate all parts of campus, such as locations and presenters
(professors, staff, faculty), during fall RA training
Break it up: Make returner sessions more active, especially sessions
longer than 45 minutes. Have a lecture but then break out into groups
Tangible reviews: Create a review packet for returners consisting
of administrative notes such as how to write an Incident Report, crisis
protocols (sexual assault, medical, psychological) and how to use
Sharepoint for RCRs and activity assessments
Nicole La Hoz, Fall 2014