Sexual, Physical, and Interpersonal Violence: Impact on Academic Performance Among College Students

Background:Literature consistently finds that experiences with violence negatively impacts students at all levels of education.  Students who experience violence are more likely to drop out of school. Students who remain in school have significant drops in their educational attainment. Research on the alarming rates of sexual violence on college campuses also finds that sexual violence victimization impacts students’ educational attainment. A study focusing specifically on women in colleges found that women sexually assaulted during their first semester had lower GPAs than women not assaulted and that the severity of victimization impacted GPAs. Although we know that violence impacts educational attainment, we do not know how experiences with various forms of violence impact academic performance. This study examines how students’ experiences with sexual violence and physical violence (in an intimate relationship and by friends and stranger) are associated with academic performance of college students.

Methods: This study was conducted at a public university in a state located in the southwest. Case files of 120 campus based Relationship and Sexual Violence Program (RSVP) service users, between 2009 to 2013, were examined to identify the type of violence students experienced. Unfortunately, only 48 of the 120 cases included students’ identification numbers (needed for GPA access) and GPAs for both prior and following the violent incident. Students’ GPA was obtained from the university’s Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness (IRPE) Office. The sample consisted of 89.2% females and nearly 41.7% of the respondents were European Americans and 58.3% were minorities. Paired sample t-test was used to compare mean differences in GPA before and after the incident of violence. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine GPA differences among forms of violence and ethnic groups. This study received Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval.

Results: Key findings indicate that overall there was a significant decline in GPA from before (M =2.9, SD=.77,), t=2.1 p<.05) to after students’ experiences with a violent incident (M=2.65, SD=0.93). There were no significant differences in GPA decline among the various forms of violence experienced. .Similarly, GPAs declined among all ethnic groups, that is, European American and minority groups (M= -.44, SD=.69; M=-.14, SD=1.0). However, there was no significant difference in the amount of decline among ethnic groups.

Implications for policy and practice: The findings of the study indicate that universities should be well served to increase their violence prevention and intervention services for students who have been victimized by sexual, physical, and interpersonal violence. Although the type of victimization did not impact decline in GPA in this study, future studies should be conducted with larger samples to assess the need for intervention programming specific for various forms of victimization.