Conducting informal individual interventions with students is a professional expectation for residence life professionals in higher education who live in campus residence halls. Despite this expectation there is limited understanding about what constitutes an effective individual intervention, especially from the perspective of the person…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether, and how, electricity consumption by students in university residence halls were impacted through three intervention strategies. Design/methodology/approach: The current investigation uses a quasi-experimental design by exposing freshman students in four matched residence halls and the…

This study examined incoming first-year students' normative perceptions of alcohol use and alcohol-related attitudes of other students of the same gender living on their residence hall floor. Male and female residents overestimated the alcohol use behavior and related attitudes among their floormates. Results also showed that perceived norms were…

Objective: The authors examined the secondhand effects among college freshmen of others' alcohol use and related student characteristics, and perceptions about residence hallmates. Participants: The authors surveyed 509 incoming freshmen residing in predominantly freshman residence halls. Methods: The authors administered a Web-based survey 2…

Despite anecdotal evidence that residence hall staff are involved in the intrusive delivery of early warning academic intervention programs, little literature exists that defines these programs or the role of residence life staff in their delivery. Understanding the existence of such programs and the involvement of residence life staff is…

An intervention to reduce college alcohol use and secondhand effects was tested. Freshmen dormitory wings at a large Mid-Atlantic public university were assigned to single-gender (SG) or mixed-gender (MG) Information-Motivation-Behavior (IMB) workshops implemented during the first weeks of school, or a control condition. Students were surveyed…

Objective: The authors tested a prototype intervention designed to deter alcohol use in residence halls. Participants: Approximately 384 freshmen participated in the study over a 2-year period. Methods: The authors devised a feedback method that assessed residents' blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at night and allowed the readings to be retrieved…

College students have been shown to consistently overestimate the drinking of their peers. As a result, social norms approaches are effective in correcting these misperceived norms to reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems. In this review of literature, the authors critically evaluated the effectiveness of personalized normative…