Introduction
In the series of articles published on “Academic performance”, this article addresses the association between sexual violence and academic performance. It is worth noting that there is a global rise in the number of students who reported to being victims of sexual violence and harassment. In a survey specific to the United Kingdom involving 52,000 final year undergraduates, certain revelations established the occurrence of sexual violence in the institution of higher learning.
For instance, 14 percent of the students acknowledged experiencing sexual violence such as rape, attempted rape, and unwanted contact; 1.5 percent of students reported having intimate relationship with staff member; nearly half of the respondents who reported their sexual orientation as gay, lesbians and bisexual experienced sexual harassment while 22 percent of the heterosexual students experienced similar fate; and finally, women were more prone to sexual violent than their male counterparts (Clarke and Doughty, 2025). All of these revelations, if critically evaluated could potentially impact on the academic performance of the affected students.
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Overview of Sexual Violence
By sexual violence, this article defines the concept (Sexual violence) as any type of sexual activity either by visual or verbal approach through which someone manipulates or coerces another into unwanted sexual activities without their consent (Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs, 2023).
Sexual assaulters commit this crime in different forms such as rape or sexual assault in all forms it exists (incest and intimate partners); sexual exploitation and trafficking; unsolicited sexual contact; sexual harassment; revealing genitals to others without consent; masturbating in public places; non-consensual sexting and sneakily watching people in private act of intimacy without their permission. Barbara et al (2019) made a list of specific sexual violence women (who are more prone to this issue) face and it includes sexual abuse, forced prostitution, selective abortion, and neglect of affected girl child.
Liqing et al (2023) identified perpetrators of this type of violence to include spouse, neighbour partners, parent, family member, and people in position of authority. Ideally, the tendencies of sexual violence is higher in universities because majority of students learning therein have their ages below 25 years. This age put these students at a risk of this experience because they are young and tender.
One theory that explains the association between sexual violence and academic performance is the psychological impact model. The theory states that traumatic events often affect cognitive function. In this article, traumatic event such as sexual violence is capable of affecting students’ academic performance.
Impacts of Sexual Violence on students’ academic performance.
Several studies have been conducted to understand the association between these two variables with majority of these studies reporting that sexual violence has a negative impact on academic performance. To begin justifying this association, students’ who experience sexual violence often have mental health crisis. For example, they develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Dworking, 2020), which indirectly results in these students experiencing reduced neuro-cognitive functions. This means that sexually abused students show reduced verbal learning, information processing, working memory and verbal memory (Scott et al, 2015).
All these negatively have an impact on their focus to learn and ultimately their academic performance. Additionally, students’ with history of sexual violence also show symptoms like anxiety, depression, shock, fear, confusion, social withdrawal, binge drinking, physical injuries, and suicidal ideation which are inimical on students’ learning thereby having negative impact these students’ academic performance.
From the outcome perspective, sexual violence has been reported to reduce students’ involvement in campus activities (Stermac, Horowitz, & Bance, 2013). Non-involvement in campus activities such as avoiding classes which could significantly decrease a student’s course grades or overall grade point average (GPA).
Jordan, Combs, & Smith (2014) reported in their study that white women in American post secondary institution who experienced sexual violence during their first semester had lower GPA at the end of the academic calenders than students without the experience. In another study, Mengo & Black (2016) reported the possibility of sexually assaulted students dropping out of school – about 34 percent of the respondent in this study dropped out of school. In addition, the scholars reported that sexual violence or physical/verbal victimization from intimate partners significantly results in a lower GPA after the incident.
Academic performance variables such as academic delay, academic failure, and academic non-attendance were observed to be significantly higher in students who reported sexual violence than students who do not (Stermac et al, 2020)
Conclusion
The summary of the whole article points to the fact that the increasing amount of sexual violence experienced in institutions of higher learning significantly results in the poor academic performance of the affected students. It was reported that sexual violence often affect the mental state of affected students evidenced in the occurrence of mental health crisis like PTSD and depression after exposure to SV. These crisis invariably does not provide an enabling learning environment for the affected students thus resulting in poor academic performance.
Similarly, poor academic performance is of sexually assaulted students is reflected in variables such as academic non-attendance, failure, delay and ultimately a lower grade point average
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References
Barbara G, Facchin F, Vercellini P, Cattaneo C, Kustermann A. (2019). Sexual violence against women: a multidisciplinary integrated care model. BMJ. ;367:l6616.
Clarke and Doughty, E (2025). Thousand of student report sexual violence at University. Available online from. Accessed 2nd October, 2025
Dworkin E. R. (2020). Risk for mental disorders associated with sexual assault: A meta- analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(5), 1011–1028. 10.1177/1524838018813198 [DOI]
Liqing, L, Shen, X., Zeng, G. et al. (2023). Sexual violence against women remains problematic and highly prevalent around the world. BMC Women’s Health 23, 196. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-023-02338-8
Jordan, C. E., Combs, J. L., & Smith, G. T. (2014). An exploration of sexual victimization and academic performance among college women. Trauma, Violence & Abuse, 15(3), 191–200. doi: 10.1177/1524838014520637
Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs (2023). What is Sexual violence? Fact Sheet. [Available online] from https://www.kasap.org/sexual-assault-overview/ Accessed 5th Oct, 2025.
Mengo, C., & Black, B. M. (2016). Violence victimization on a college campus: Impact on GPA and school dropout. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, & Practice, 18(2), 234–248. doi: 10.1177%2F1521025115584750
Scott J. C., Matt G. E., Wrocklage K. M., Crnich C., Jordan J., Southwick S. M., Krystal J. H., Schweinsburg B. C. (2015). A quantitative meta-analysis of neurocognitive functioning in posttraumatic stress disorder. Psychological Bulletin, 141(1), 105– 140. 10.1037/a0038039
Stermac, L., Cripps, J., Amiri, T. and Badali, V., 2020. Sexual violence and women’s education: Examining academic performance and persistence. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 50(1), pp.28-39.
Stermac, L. Horowitz, S., & Bance, S. (2013, June). Sexually coercive behaviours among university students: Is disclosure helpful? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Quebec City, QC
