An Investigation of the Effects of Perceived Justice, Verbal Aggression, and Burnout on Academic Achievement of University Students

Abstract

The current study has investigated the effects of justice, aggression, and burnout on academic achievement. The sample (n=1481) of the study consisted of undergraduate university students. The constructs used in the study have been utilized from the extant literature. In detail, perceptions of justice were operationalized as 'distributive justice', 'procedural justice', and 'interactional justice'. Aggression was utilized as 'verbal aggression'. Burnout was operationalized as 'emotional exhaustion', 'cynicism', and reduced professional efficacy'. Academic achievement was utilized as 'GPA scores' of students. In regards to the aforementioned constructs, the study has developed and tested a research model with 22 hypothesized linkages. These 22 hypotheses were designed to provide assertions to the generic research questions of the study. The results of the path analysis reveal that distributive justice was significantly related to verbal aggression. This finding depicted a positive relationship contrary to the negative prediction of the hypothesis. Procedural and interactional justice were not related to verbal aggression. In addition, interactional justice was negatively related to emotional exhaustion where distributive and procedural justice were not. Furthermore, distributive justice was negatively associated with cynicism where procedural and interactional justice were not. Additionally, distributive and procedural justice were negatively and interactional justice was positively related to reduced professional efficacy. Conjointly, only distributive justice was associated to academic achievement where procedural and interactional justice were not. Path analytical results showed that verbal aggression was positively related to exhaustion and cynicism, however, verbal aggression was negatively related to reduced professional efficacy. Additionally, verbal aggression did not elicit any effect on academic achievement. The results demonstrated that emotional exhaustio n and cynicism were not related to academic achievement. However, reduced professional efficacy was found to be negatively associated to academic achievement. In this dissertation, discussion of the findings, implications, limitations of the study, and avenues for future research are also presented.