Attitude toward gay and lesbian students: an investigation of resident advisors at Virginia Tech

Recently, the population of gay and lesbian persons who are open about their sexuality has increased (Evans and Wall, 1991). Student attitudes toward these subpopulations are of interest to educators and administrators who are involved in directly serving students. While several national studies have been conducted to assess general attitudes toward gays and lesbians, little research is aimed at assessing student attitudes toward this population. Past research has pointed up the need for an instrument that assesses attitudes toward gay men and lesbians as two distinct groups. Herek developed an inventory to address this issue. The attitudes of Virginia Tech’s Resident Advisors toward lesbians and gay men were assessed using Herek’s (1988) Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men scale. A three-way ANOVA was used to determine the degree to which gender, academic level, and tenure of experience were associated with scores on the inventory. No significant effects were revealed from this analysis. Overall mean scores fell in the "neutral" range suggesting a lack of support for both gay and lesbian persons. The results of this study should aid educators and other administrators at Virginia Tech in better understanding the attitudes of the Resident Advisors toward gays and lesbians and to consider the implications of this assessment data.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Student Personnel Services and Counseling

Department dc:contributor.department

Student Personnel Services and Counseling

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1994

Author dc:creator

• Sanford, Michele L.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

etd-01172009-063259

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/40642