Student satisfaction with residence and GPA as a function of person-environment fit in the residence halls on a college campus

Through my experiences as a student living in on-campus housing, a residence life official and a researcher asking students about their experiences in on-campus housing, I noticed that certain students were happier or functioned better in certain residence halls. Given that I experienced a lot of different residence hall environments and facilities, and saw a lot of students who were happy or unhappy in each setting, I began to believe that a good person-environment fit was necessary to facilitate residents\u27 well being. This study was designed to examine the relationship between the degree of person-environment fit and students\u27 satisfaction with residence and GPA. The University Residence Environment Scale, URES (Moos, 1987) was used to measure the degree of person-environment fit for undergraduate students (N = 75) living in on-campus housing at a small private college. Fit was measured by taking the absolute value of the discrepancy between an individual\u27s Ideal Form and Real Form score on the URES. Based on current person-environment fit research, it was expected that students with small discrepancy scores (a good fit) would have high satisfaction with residence and high GPAs. Multiple regression equations indicated that a good fit on the Emotional Support subscale and a poor fit on the Competition subscale was predictive of high satisfaction with residence, while a good fit on the Academic Achievement subscale and a poor fit on the Involvement subscale was predictive of a high GPA. Interviews with residents supplemented these empirical findings. Some interviewees intuitively validated the person-environment fit model, while others provided insight into other factors that may have affected satisfaction with residence and GPA. Implications for future research, including a new measure of fit to help control for the error variance associated with difference scores, were discussed