Staff training can ‘alleviate sexual harassment risks for PGRs’

Doctoral students are being “neglected” in university efforts to address sexual harassment, a report has warned, arguing that student and staff training can form part of an “effective” approach to preventing abuses of power.

A new preprint argues that “power-based sexual harassment in academia remains pervasive” and that “doctoral education has been neglected, even though doctoral students are at high risk”.

Such students are particularly vulnerable to “boundary-blurring and grooming” from staff members, which can include communicating with them outside of established routes, including social media and WhatsApp; instances where staff members share inappropriate personal details; and inappropriate alcohol consumption between staff and doctoral students owing to less formal educational settings, the report says. 

For the study, 125 students and 82 staff members took part in professional boundary training sessions across 12 institutions, which consisted of one-and-a-half-hour interaction training sessions for staff, and two-and-a-half-hour training sessions for students. Participants were shown vignettes that outlined “how subtle abuses of power can escalate over time” and they were encouraged to discuss the scenarios and anonymously vote on the ethics of each situation. 

Staff and students were asked to rate their attitudes towards power-based sexual harassment and professional boundaries, bystander readiness, and knowledge of institutional support pathways. The results showed there were “significant changes in attitudes towards power-based sexual harassment and professional boundaries among PGRs and staff in HE” because of the training.

Students saw a “very large” increase in confidence in their bystander awareness following the training and their ability to take action when witnessing inappropriate behaviour. 

Staff who had been at their institution for a longer period showed more “positive attitudes” towards professional boundaries and sexual harassment, as well as greater knowledge of institutional support pathways. This finding was consistent for men as well as women, and “suggests that institutional enculturation is having a positive effect on attitudes”.

“Across both PGR and staff cohorts, our results provide strong evidence that the training was associated with meaningful improvements to participants’ preparedness to recognise, respond to, and navigate issues related to sexual harassment and professional boundaries…This pattern of results suggests that the training strengthens attitudinal alignment while also improving practical understanding of how to access support for both PGR and staff participants,” it says.

Feedback from participating doctoral students was “broadly positive”, while views were more mixed among academics. One participant expressed surprise about a lack of knowledge on professional boundaries among other participating staff members, saying: “It surprised me that there were still levels of disagreement or [different] levels of knowledge.”

The report stresses that training should just form “one component of a whole institution approach”, adding that “without addressing other organisational factors that facilitate sexual harassment, training is likely to be ineffective”.

Anna Bull, report author and founder of the sexual harassment awareness campaign The 1752 Group, said that the positive results were “really notable, because the training is relatively short. It was one-and-a-half hours for staff and two-and-a-half hours for doctoral students. And so it’s particularly noticeable that a relatively short intervention can make a difference.”

She noted while that OfS sexual harassment regulations came into effect last year, the regulation outlined that universities need to “take steps to prevent abuses of power between staff and students, but it hasn’t specified what steps these are, other than suggesting having a policy”, and said this research could be used by universities when developing this work. 

“There’s a risk that student services are focusing primarily on taught students, whether it’s undergrad and tertiary taught students, and that doctoral students who are often older and might be perceived as being less risky, or might be just less looped into the institution, are not seen as a priority even though they have a particular risk profile.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com