This study was concerned with determining if: (1) the effectiveness of residence hall student government varies according to the perceptions of its role held by residence hall student staff and government officers, and the hall type and population; (2) the perception of hall student government held by student staff varies according to their age, time in position and gender; and (3) the perception of hall student government by student officers varies according to their age, time in office and gender. The survey population included 48 residence hall directors, 209 student staff and 281 student officers from northwestern land grant universities. Hall directors were surveyed to determine perceived effectiveness of their hall's student government, and the resident population. Student staff and officer perceptions of the role of hall student government were obtained by utilizing the government section of the Residence Hall Attitude Scale (Murphy 1971). Age, gender, time in position or office and type of hall were also provided by the students. Multiple regression analysis was used to test three hypotheses at a .05 level of significance. Of the hypothesized relationships, only gender was found to be significantly related to the variance in perceptions of role of hall student government. In the case of both student staff and officers, women were more favorable toward residence hail student government than men. The combined independent variables of age, gender and time in position or office were found, however, to account for only small percentages (4.4%, staff; 7.8%, officers) of the total variance. The regression equation for effectiveness of hall student government failed to account for significant variance due to any of the independent variables of student staff and officer perceptions, type or population of hall. All variables combined accounted for only 7.7% of the variance in perception. The results of this research suggest that hypothesized relationships between various demographic factors and perceptions, and effectiveness of residence hall student government do not exist. This indicates that some other variables must be used to attempt prediction of either effectiveness or role perceptions of hall student government. / Graduation date: 1990