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

PurposeThis 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/approachLongitudinal 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.FindingsThe 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/valueThis 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.