The Effect of Penn State’s Roommate Selection Options on...

Introduction: In 2013, Penn State saw a 1.6% increase in student enrollment. This year, Penn State’s University Park gained 46,184 new incoming students. Our research looks into the incoming freshmen class and the options they are given in order to choose a roommate. These options include random selection, in which the university will randomly assign people to live together; Facebook, where students can search on their own for roommates, or students may choose friends from home to live with. We wanted to study the effect of each of these options and see how each one affected the roommate’s friendship. Does living with someone from home automatically mean that the friendship will continue to grow, or does it cause more†¦show more content†¦After re-sending out our survey we gained 40 more responses. Our survey consisted of 30 different questions, which were created to gauge many different factors in how freshmen chose their roommates. The questions that were asked on the survey included demographic questions, such as age and gender. The class standing of the responder determined which questions they were going to answer on the survey. If the participants were freshmen they answered a series of questions that allowed us to gather data on how they met their roommate, as well their current relationship with their roommate. If the responder answered that they were an upperclassmen (sophomore, junior, senior) then they answered questions that allowed us to determine their current relationship with their freshman roommate. We also asked these participants how they met their roommate prior to freshmen year, and if they don’t live with this person than do they still communicate. If the participant answered that they do not speak to their freshman roommate at all, we used an open-ended question in order to ask why. The questions on this survey were made up of open ended, and multiple-choice questions. The open-ended questions were used in order to gain responses on questions that could not be answered by multiple-choice, such as current feelings on their roommate. The participants