Perceived Campus Belonging and Campus Safety Mediate the Relationship between Intimate Partner Violence and Academic Challenges Among College Students

Background and Purpose: Among college students, intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with academic consequences, such as academic disengagement, lower GPA, and higher dropout rates. While a relationship between IPV and academic performance has been established, more research is needed on the structural factors that mitigate this relationship. For example, a sense of campus community and campus safety have been found to have significant, direct effects on academic disengagement. Moreover, recent research suggests that campus belonging mediates the relationship between IPV and adverse outcomes related to mental health and substance use. Therefore, this study investigated campus belonging and campus safety hypothesizing that these constructs would mediate the relationship between IPV and academic challenges.

Methods: We analyzed Fall 2019 panel data (n=38,679) from the National College Health Assessment (NCHA). On average, participants were 22.52 years of age and were majority cisgender (98.25%) women (62.43%) who identified as heterosexual (82.11%). Approximately 55% of the sample identified as white and 16.45% as Latina/o/x or Hispanic. The majority of participants were undergraduate students (78.29%) and typically lived off-campus (40.25%) or in campus/university housing (39.03%). Controlling for student race, gender, and sexual orientation, the study assessed the mediating role of campus belonging and campus safety on the relationship between IPV experience (physical/sexual and emotional) and academic challenges. The academics measure assessed challenges with academics within the last 12 months. Sum scores were created for both campus belonging and campus safety. Data analysis consisted of mediation analyses using the method outlined by Hayes (2022) and logistic regression models.

Results: The results revealed a significant indirect effect of physical/sexual IPV experience on academic challenges (β = .08, Z = 4.65). The direct effect of physical/sexual IPV on academic challenges was also found significant for mediators including campus belonging (β = .23, p < .05) and campus safety (β = .24, p<.05). Further, the results revealed a significant indirect effect of emotional IPV experience on academic challenges (β = .06, Z = 9.01). The direct effect of emotional IPV on academic challenges was also found significant in the presence of mediators including campus belonging (β = .29, p <.05) and campus safety (β = .30, p< .05). Hence, campus belonging and campus safety both partially mediated the relationship between IPV (physical/sexual and emotional) and academic challenges.

Conclusions and Implications: This study found that campus belonging and campus safety partially mediated the relationship between IPV and academic challenges. This suggests the importance of addressing campus contextual and structural factors that affect IPV survivors’ academic success. Therefore, institutions of higher education have strong incentives for addressing campus-related constructs in IPV prevention and intervention efforts. This may include training faculty, staff, and administrators in trauma-informed strategies to increase campus connections for survivors of IPV and investing in campus advocacy and prevention programming. Longitudinal and intersectional research is needed to examine causality as well as to explore the impact of these constructs on academic outcomes for minoritized college students who are survivors of IPV.