Font ResizeResearch by Brigham Young University social scientists suggests co-educational housing on college campuses could lead to self-destructive behaviors: co-ed residents are nearly 2.5 times more likely to binge drink on a weekly basis than their counterparts in single-sex housing.
"These findings indicate there might be a different normative context when young adults men and women live together and when they live in gender-specific housing," said Jason Carroll, an associate professor in BYU's School of Family Life. "This is a call for further investigation."
Carroll's study, based on surveys of 500 students at five American campuses, none of them in Utah, will be published today in the Journal of American College Health . The key finding is that 42 percent of those in co-ed residences reported binge drinking on a weekly basis, compared with 18 percent of those in single-sex housing. Binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more drinks at once, or imbibing with the intent of getting drunk.
The researchers investigated whether other factors could explain the difference. But age, religiosity, impulsivity and relationship status didn't matter.
"On all those factors we saw no significant difference between populations," Carroll said. "It strengthens the possibility that housing environments can have a causal impact on student behavior."
The findings are significant because co-ed housing makes up more than 90 percent of
Residence halls at the University of Utah, which accommodate 1,530 students, are largely co-ed. Except for married students, BYU students are required to live in single-sex arrangements. Utah State University reserves only its 350-bed twin towers for single-sex housing, comprising about one-fourth of its dorm capacity.
"There are some, not many, of their families that prefer a single-sex option. Due to the layout of those buildings, which were built in the 1970s, it would be harder to accommodate co-ed," said Whitney Milligan, USU's director of residence life.
While Utah's public campuses are dry by law, they are no strangers to binge drinking. But Milligan was surprised by the finding that students in gender-specific housing are less likely to abuse liquor.
"Our single-sex men's dorm by far has more issues with drugs and alcohol," she said.
The BYU researchers, meanwhile, wondered whether surveyed students who avoid alcohol might choose to be in single-sex housing. Housing applications allow students to opt out of mixed-gender dorms, but they discovered that few students exercised that option.
"Most of the students who live in gender-specific housing did not request to be there; they were placed there by the university," said lead author Brian Willoughby, a former student of Carroll's. Willoughby, who conducted the research while at University of Minnesota, is back at BYU this year as a visiting scholar.
The researchers also found greater use of pornography and more permissive attitudes about sex among those in co-ed housing. These students were also more likely to have had three or more sex partners in the past year.
The surveyed students were at two public universities in the Midwest, another on the West Coast, a large East Coast private university and a religious school. The research did not identify the schools. The students all lived in university-sponsored housing.
What makes these findings compelling for Carroll is that they shed light on the possible consequences of the shift toward co-ed living on U.S. college campuses. The trend has occurred in step with the decline of the doctrine in loco parentis since 1980, said Carroll, referring to the notion that universities should act as parents, working to shape students moral and ethical development. BYU is one of the nation's few institutions still squarely footed in the old camp.
"This shift has occurred with little investigation of its outcomes," said Carroll, who hopes to build on the research with longitudinal studies that could establish causal relationships.
