Teacher-perpetrated sexual harassment and student performance: roles of emotional exhaustion and neuroticism

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the effects of teacher-perpetrated sexual harassment on graduate students' academic and extracurricular performance using conservation of resources theory as a framework. Further, it looks into the moderating role of trait neuroticism on the indirect relationship between sexual harassment and student performance via emotional exhaustion.

Design/methodology/approach

Longitudinal data were collected in three waves from 218 Pakistani students over a period of three months during the fall 2019 semester. PROCESS Macro (v. 4) model 7 was used on SPSS (v. 21) to analyze the data for testing the moderated-mediation hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that as a source of toxic stress, teacher-perpetrated sexual harassment is negatively related to both academic performance and extracurricular performance, and that emotional exhaustion is a mediator in this inverse relationship. In addition, trait neuroticism strengthens the negative effect of teacher-to-student sexual harassment on student performance through emotional exhaustion.

Originality/value

This study addresses an unexplored moderated-mediation mechanism, and thus makes valuable contributions to education management research and practice. More specifically, it contributes by examining emotional exhaustion as a mediating variable in the relationship of teacher-perpetrated sexual harassment and student performance and, perhaps for the first time, establishes the moderating role of neuroticism in increasing the strength of the aforementioned relationship.

Citation

Bilal, A., Laeeque, S.H., Saeed, M.A. and Mumtaz, M. (2022), "Teacher-perpetrated sexual harassment and student performance: roles of emotional exhaustion and neuroticism", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 41 No. 5, pp. 793-812. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-06-2021-0155