Abstract:
Gaslighting is social tactic used generally to manipulate perception, reality, and abilities
of a person and as a strategy to abuse someone. Facing gaslighting on a regular basis
can be quite distressing. When gaslighting is experienced by nation builders; the
teachers, they may feel stressed and worried that can eventually cause burnout,
therefore, hampering their teaching capacities and competencies. Thus, this quantitative
study aimed to investigate the effects of gaslighting on burnout and teaching self efficacy of university faculty based on non-probability convenient sampling technique.
For this purpose, 200 university faculty members were recruited from government and
private institutions. The data was collected using self-designed demographic sheet,
victim gaslighting questionnaire, burnout assessment tool and teaching self-efficacy
scale. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 22. After the analysis, it was
found out that gaslighting has a strong positive relationship with burnout (rs = .66, p ≤
0.01) which means higher gaslighting might lead to high levels of burnout. Gaslighting
(rs = -.14, p ≤ .001) and burnout (rs = .15, p ≤ .05) were found to have a week negative
correlation with teaching self-efficacy. When analysis was run to find out the gender
differences on these experiences, it was found out that males experience higher level of
gaslighting (Mean Rank = 109.54) and Burnout (Mean Rank = 103.20) in comparison
to females (Gaslighting Mean Rank = 91.28; Burnout Mean Rank = 97.75) respectively.
Conversely, females have higher Teaching Self-Efficacy (Mean Rank = 108.87) in
comparison to males (Mean Rank = 92.30). Lastly, the results of Mann-Whitney U Test
depicted that there are significant differences in experience of Gaslighting (p ≤ .01) and
Teaching Self-Efficacy (p ≤ .05) based on the education. It was found out that
participants with an education of MS/MPhil experience higher Gaslighting (Mean Rank
= 105.29) and have low Teaching Self-Efficacy (Mean Rank = 96.39) in comparison to
PhD participants (Gaslighting Mean Rank = 80.08; Self-Efficacy
Mean Rank = 118.03). The faculty members who experience gaslighting find it difficult
to keep their focus and enthusiasm for teaching. This may lead to fewer involvement
with students, less creativity in designing lessons and more ineffective instructional and
pedagogy methods at all levels. It is therefore likely that learning experiences will be
reduced for students.
Keywords: Gaslighting, Burnout, Teaching self-efficacy, University faculty
