Effects of Bullying on Students

Effects of Bullying on Students

Instructions:-

 Obtain the partially completed report (from Learning@Griffith) called “Template.doc”. Your colleagues have kindly indicated what parts you need to add in the body of the report

 Obtain the data set compiled by your peers (see Learning@Griffith)

 Conduct statistical analyses on the data set o You will need to describe the sample on relevant demographic characteristics (number of boys and girls, age, grades) o Provide descriptive statistics for each of the variables o Present the results in which you examine the association between the variables

 Complete the report and submit it by the due date

o Give the report an appropriate title

o Write an Abstract

o Complete the Introduction (state hypotheses)

o Complete the Results section

o Write the Discussion

o Add any references for any additional authors that you cited in the report o Add the Appendix of SPSS Output

Solution

Effects of Bullying on Students

Abstract

The study was designed to examine how the intensity of bullying affects the levels of personal stress, depression and self-esteem among students of grades 5, 6 and 7. The design of the current research was a study of a cohort of grades 5, 6 and 7 over a period of 1 month. The participants were 139 students issued with questionnaires once to be filled by students and parents over one week. The questionnaires were designed such that students could report the intensity of bullying they had received, their perceived stress levels, depression levels and self-esteem. The correlation coefficient between bullying and personal stress was .205, which was significant at the 0.05 level of confidence. Bullying and depression had a correlation coefficient of .430 significant at the 0.01 level of confidence. There was also a negative correlation coefficient at the 0.01 level of confidence of -.382. This study has examined relationships between the intensity of bullying and levels of stress, depression and self-esteem, and confirmed that as the intensity of bullying increases, the levels of stress and depression increase while that of self-esteem reduces.
Effects of Bullying on Students

            The significant social impact of schoolyard bullying was vividly illustrated in August 2009 when Jai Morcom died as a result of a playground brawl at Mullumbimby High School (New South Wales, Australia). News of the 15 year-olds death led to public outcry and a mass protest by students and staff at the school (Stolz, 2009). A poll conducted by the Queensland newspaper The Courier Mail showed that 92% of the 604 respondents responded Yes to the question of Do you think bullying is out of control in our schools? While this sample is likely to be biased, placing doubts over the extent to which this opinion is shared by the general population, it does suggest a perception of a high incidence of bullying in Australian schools. Additional research conducted by the Queensland Education Department indicates that approximately five children in each class are verbally or physically bullied each week and that up to 70% of suspensions relate to bullying behaviour. Research conducted in other countries support these findings in reporting that 5 to 15% of primary school and 3 to 10% of secondary school children being the victims of bullying on at least a weekly basis (Olweus, 1994; Genta, Menesini, Fonzi, Costabile, & Smith, 1996). The high prevalence of bullying in schools indicates that more information is needed on what variables are associated with bullying and what impact it has on children.

             Prior research on the victims of bullying has revealed that several variables are associated with bullying. Boys are more likely to be bullied than girls (e.g., Slee & Rigby, 1993; Nansel et al., 2001), particularly when bullying includes physical harm and threats (Baldry, 1998). Younger children are also more likely to report being the victim of bullying than older children (Whitney & Smith, 1993). Victims also tend to be more introverted, passive, submissive, and lonely (Boulton & Smith, 1994; Mynard & Joseph, 1997). In victims, the amount of bullying received is positively associated with levels of anxiety (e.g., Bond, Carlin, Thomas, Rubin, & Patton, 2001) and depression (e.g., Abada, Hou, & Ram, 2008; Craig, 1998), and negatively associated with self-worth (e.g., Slee & Rigby, 1993), popularity (Olweus, 1978), and physical health (Abada et al., 2008). The negative psychological variables that are associated with bullying indicate that victimisation is likely to lead to considerable stress (Newman, Holden, & Delville, 2005) and be a risk factor for subsequent mental health problems (Kaltiala-Heino, Rimpelä, Rantanen, & Rimpelä, 2000).

            Coggan, Bennett, Hooper, and Dickinson (2003) reported the findings of a large cross-sectional survey of 3,265 randomly selected secondary school students in New Zealand. The students were categorised as experiencing chronic bullying (physical violence, verbal teasing, sexual harassment, and racist comments) or not across a six month period. A comparison between the groups revealed significant differences on several psychological measures. Bullied children were less likely to feel good about themselves, had a lower self-esteem, more likely to have attempted self-harm and suicide, and more likely to have higher scores for depression, stress, and hopelessness. Coggan et al. argued that the findings indicated an association between chronic bullying and negative mental health outcomes in secondary school children. Further, the authors stressed that their findings highlight the need for positive youth development strategies in conjunction with prevention and intervention strategies to reduce bullying at school.

            The present study aimed to extend the findings of Coggan et al. (2003) in two main ways. First, we changed the sample of students that were studied. Students were sampled from primary schools in Queensland, Australia. Second, rather than treating bullying as a categorical variable (i.e., bullied versus not bullied), we treated it as a quantitative variable (i.e., frequency of bullying incidents). An analysis of the resulting data set will provide descriptive statistics on the extent of bullying in students and those psychological variables that might be associated with the extent of bullying.

[Insert hypotheses here]

The hypotheses that are tested in the current study include:

There is a correlation between bullying and perceived stress

Null hypothesis: The higher the intensity of bullying a student experiences, the higher the level of perceived stress.

Research hypothesis: There is no correlation between bullying and perceived stress

H₀: µ₁=µ₂

H₁: µ₁≠µ₂

There is a correlation between bullying and depression

Null hypothesis: The higher the intensity of bullying a student experiences, the higher the level of depression.

Research hypothesis: There is no correlation between bullying and depression

H₀: µ₁=µ₂

H₁: µ₁≠µ₂

There is a strong correlation between bullying and self-esteem.

Null hypothesis: The higher the intensity of bullying a student experiences, the lower the student’s self-esteem.

Research hypothesis: There is no correlation between bullying and self esteem

H₀: µ₁>µ₂

H₁: µ₁≠µ₂

From prior research, it is possible to hypothesize that as the level of bullying increases, there should be an increase in levels of personal stress of students. It is also possible to develop a null hypothesis that as the intensity of bullying increases, the level of depression also increases. From the findings of researchers like Abada et al. (2008), with an increase in the intensity of bullying, it is possible to expect the level of self-esteem to increase.

Method

Participants

A sample of 139 students was surveyed, including 55 female and 84 male students. The students were aged between 9 and 12 and were in grades 5, 6 and 7. In grade 5, the students aged 9 were 24, including 15 males and 9 females. The students aged 10 in grade 5 were 31, including 19 males and 12 females. In grade 6, there were no students aged 9. The students aged 10 were 18 students aged 10 including 10 males and 8 females. The students aged 11 were 22, with 14 males and 8 females. In grade 7, 19 students were aged 11 and 25 aged 12. 11 males and 8 females aged 11 were in grade 7 at the time of the survey. The number of males aged 12 who were surveyed were 15 and the females were 10. All the students aged 12 were in grade 7. Table 1 shows a cross tabulation of gender, grade and age of the students surveyed.

Table 1: Gender * Grade * Age Crosstabulation

Sampling method.  The methods used to sample the students and to measure the variables were given approval by the Institutional Research Ethics Committee. The target population was deemed to be Queensland primary school children in grades 5, 6, and 7. The potential participants were those students that were randomly selected to receive a survey pack that contained the self-report measurement instruments. To obtain the list of potential participants, five state schools in Queensland were first randomly selected to participate in the study. Each school consisted of a preparatory year and grades 1 to 7. The number of enrolments at the schools varied from 423 to 845 students. The enrolment list for each school was next obtained and 30 students in grades 5, 6, and 7 were randomly selected. These students became the potential participants and were each given a survey pack to take home. The pack included an information sheet and consent form that the parent or guardian was required to complete as acknowledgement of informed consent. In addition, the pack included the questionnaires to obtain information regarding demographic characteristics, frequency of bullying, perceived stress, depression, and self-esteem. The students were asked to return the completed questionnaires within one week. Of the 150 survey packs handed out, 80% were returned thus giving an actual sample of 120 students.

Design

 [Insert information here about the variables studied, general statistical approach used, data screening methods etc.]

The variables that were studied include the gender, age, grade, perceived stress, depression and self-esteem. The study was designed such that the data was collected with regard to the gender of the students. The ages were fixed at 9 to 12 and the grades were varied from grade 5 to grade 7. The students were asked to give their responses in terms of their agreement with certain statements that suggest certain levels of bullying, perceived stress, depression and self-esteem. In the study, the variables of interest, however, were the level of bullying, perceived stress, depression and self-esteem.

The frequency of bullying suggested the student’s agreement that he or she has received a certain level of bullying. The intensity of perceived stress was measured by the students’ agreement with certain statements suggesting the level of stress they were experiencing as a result of the bullying. The self-esteem was measured by analysing the agreement of students with some statements that suggested that they had self-esteem or felt little or no self-esteem. Any answers with values that fell within the data limits of the variable were accepted while those that did not fall within that limit were rejected.

Materials

            Self-report measures were used to obtain demographic information and to measure each variable of bullying, perceived stress, depression, and self-esteem.

            Demographic characteristics. Three questions were used to obtain information about gender (male, female), age (in whole years), and grade level (5, 6, or 7).

            Frequency of bullying.The amount of bullying experienced by a student was measured as the number of times the student reported being a victim of four possible behaviours. A question asked In school over the past week, how many times have you experienced each of the following? The four items were Another child was physically violent towards me, Another child teased me, Another child made racist comments to me, and Another child made sexually harassing comments to me. The number of times each incident occurred was summed across the four items to give a single measure of the frequency of bullying the child experienced over the past week.

Perceived stress. The level of stress perceived by the student was measured with four items. These were It is hard for me to tell people I am angry, I feel stressed by expectations to do well or better at school, I feel ‘stressed out’, and Difficulties seem to pile up so high that I feel that I cannot overcome them. Ratings were made on a scale that ranged from 1 to 25, where higher ratings indicate higher agreement with the statements. The sum of the ratings for all four items (maximum score = 100) provided the measure of perceived stress.

            Depression. The students’ depression was measured with the four items of I feel lonely, I feel that people dislike me, I feel depressed, and I feel that nobody truly cares about me. Students were asked to rate their level of agreement to each statement on a scale from 1 to 10, where higher ratings indicate higher agreement. The total score across the four items (maximum score = 40) provided the measure of depression.

            Self-esteem. Four items were used to measure self-esteem. The items were I feel that I have a number of good qualities, I certainly feel useless at times, I wish I could have more respect for myself, and I take a positive attitude toward myself. Each item was rated on a four-point scale of 1 to 4, where higher ratings indicate greater agreement with the statement. The sum of ratings across the four items (maximum score = 16) was used as the measure of the students’ self-esteem.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

            For the current study, it was assumed that the variables of interest were normal random distributions with standard deviations and means. The minimum frequency of bullying was 4 while the maximum was 20. The mean frequency of bullying was 10.76 and the standard deviation was 3.487 (Table 3). The frequency of bullying is more distributed between 8 and 13 total points. The mean personal stress was 53.76 and the standard deviation was 15.336.

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics

Table 3: Descriptive Statistics for Bullying

Table 4: Frequency Distribution Table for Bullying

Figure 1: Histogram for Bullying

Table 5: Descriptive Statistics for Personal Stress

Table 6: Frequency Distribution for Bullying

Table 6 shows that most of the students agreed that bullying is between 45 and 60 points. This is confirmed by the histogram in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Histogram for Personal Stress

Table 7: Descriptive Statistics for Depression

The level of depression is normally distributed with a mean of 20.30 and a standard deviation of 9.318. The normal distribution is shown by the frequency distribution table (Table 8) and the histogram (Figure 3).

Table 8: Frequency Distribution for Depression

Figure 3: Histogram for Depression

Table 9: Descriptive Statistics for Self-esteem

Table 10: Frequency Distribution for Self-esteem

The self-esteem of students is normally distributed with a standard deviation of 3.135 and a mean of 8.64 (Table 9). The students tended to agree on self-esteem levels of between 5 and 12 as shown in Table 10 and Figure 4.

Figure 4: Histogram for Self-esteem

Variables Associated with Bullying

            The different variables were considered and correlation analyses were carried out to determine the correlation coefficients. Each response variable (personal stress, depression and self-esteem) was compared with the explanatory variable (bullying). Scatterplots were then produced to represent the correlations. SPSS software was used for the storage and analysis of the data obtained during the study. There is a positive correlation coefficient of .205 between personal stress and bullying, which is significant at 0.05 significance level. Depression and bullying are also positively correlated with a coefficient of .430, which is significant at the 0.01 level of significance. There is a negative correlation between self-esteem and bullying with a coefficient of -.382. This correlation is statistically significant at the 0.01 level of significance. Table 11 presents the correlation coefficients of personal stress, depression and self-esteem as they relate to bullying.

Table 11: Table of Correlation Coefficients

*  Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

**  Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Figure 5: Scatterplot of Personal Stress against Bullying

From the scatterplot in Figure 5, it can be seen that with an increase in the intensity of bullying in the school, there is an increase in the personal stress felt by students. The R Sq. value of 0.042 suggests that the relationship between the two variables is, however, not very strong.

Figure 6: Scatterplot of Depression against Bullying

The scatterplot in Figure 6 shows that as bullying increases, depression also increases. The value of the R Sq. of 0.185 suggests a rather strong correlation between the two varriables.

Figure 7: Scatterplot of Self Esteem against Bullying

In Figure 7, the scatterplot shows that with an increase in the intensity of bullying in the school, the level of self-esteem weakens, while, as the intensity of bullying reduces, the level of self-esteem increases. The R Sq. value of 0.146 suggests a strong correlation.

Discussion

            Two tailed bivariate correlation tests were carried out using SPSS. The results of the tests showed that there is a positive correlation between bullying and personal stress and between bullying and depression. The tests also revealed that there is a negative correlation between bullying and self-esteem. According to the results of the tests, the null hypotheses were accepted and it was concluded that as the intensity of bullying increases, the level of personal stress and depression increase while that of self-esteem reduces. The study implies that students who are more bullied are more prone to personal stress, depression and reduced self-esteem.

            There were, however, limitations to the study. One of the limitations was that the sample selected might have been biased in terms of gender since there were more males than females. The data points were also very much skewed and therefore, there was no way of telling the relationship between the variables at a glance. The correlation coefficient and the line of fit had to be used to determine the direction of the relationship. The sample selected may also not have been representative of the general population since students from only one school were sampled.

            This study is important and can be used by school administrators in monitoring stress and depression levels of students. It can also help teachers to understand some of the reasons students lose self-esteem and become stressed up or depressed. Legislators can also use the results of the study to develop policies that limit bullying in schools. However, the results of this study may be biased and may need further studies, where the opinions of females are taken in similar quantities and the sample size is made more representative of the general student population by sampling at least five schools.

References

Abada, T., Hou, F., & Ram, B. (2008). The effects of harassment and victimization on self-rated health and mental health among Canadian adolescents. Social Science & Medicine, 557-567.

Baldry, A. C. (1998). Bullying among Italian middle school students. School Psychology International, 19, 361–374.

Bond, L., Carlin, J. B., Thomas, L., Rubin, K., & Patton, G. (2001). Does bullying cause emotional problems? A prospective study of young teenagers. British Medical Journal, 323, 480–484.

Boulton, M. J., & Smith, P. K. (1994). Bully/victim problems in middle-school children: Stability, selfperceived competence, peer perceptions and peer acceptance. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 315–329.

Coggan, C., Bennett, S., Hooper, R., & Dickinson, P. (2003). Association between bullying and mental health status in New Zealand adolescents. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, 5, 16-22.

Craig, W. M. (1998). The relationship among bullying, victimization, depression, anxiety, and aggression in elementary school children. Personality and Individual Differences, 24, 123–130.

Genta, M. L., Menesini, E., Fonzi, A., Costabile, A. & Smith, P. K. (1996). Bullies and victims in schools in central and southern Italy. European Journal of Psychology of Education, XI, 97–110.

Holmes, T. H., & Rahe, R. H. (1967). The social readjustment rating scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11, 213-218.

Janis, I. L., & Mann, L. (1977). Decision making. New York: Free Press.

Kaltiala-Heino, R., Rimpelä, M., Rantanen, P., & Rimpelä, A. (2000). Bullying at school – an indicator of adolescents at risk for mental disorders. Journal of Adolescence, 23, 661-674.

Mynard, H., & Joseph, S. (1997). Bully/victim problems and their association with Eysenck’s personality dimensions in 8 to 13 year-olds. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 51–54.

Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R. S., Ruan, W. J., Simons-Morton, B., & Scheidt, P. (2001). Bullying behaviors among US youth: prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment. JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, 2094.

Newman, M. L., Holden, G. W., & Delville, Y. (2005). Isolation and the stress of being bullied. Journal of Adolescence, 28, 343-357.

Olweus, D. (1978). Aggression in the schools: bullies and whipping boys. New York: Wiley.

Olweus, D. (1994). Annotation: Bullying at school: Basic facts and effects of a school based intervention program. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 35, 1171–1190.

Slee, P. T., & Rigby, K. (1993). Australian school children’s self appraisal of interpersonal relations: the bullying experience. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 23, 273–282.       

Stolz, G. (2009). Mullumbimby High School walkout over bullying. The Courier Mail. Accessed 10/10/09 from: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26002921 -953,00.html

Whitney, L., & Smith, P. K. (1993). A survey of the nature and extent of bullying in junior/middle and secondary schools. Educational Research, 35, 3–25.

Appendix

Frequencies

                                  Statistics

Frequency Table

                                                  Gender

                                                   Grade

                                                    Age

Crosstabs

                                                   Case Processing Summary

                          Gender * Grade * Age Crosstabulation

Count

Descriptives

                                               Descriptive Statistics

Frequencies

                                 Statistics

Bullying

                                                Bullying

Frequencies

                                 Statistics

Personal Stress

                                           Personal Stress

Frequencies

                                 Statistics

Depression

                                              Depression

Frequencies

                                 Statistics

Self Esteem

                                              Self Esteem

Correlations

Graph

                                                             Correlations

*  Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

**  Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Graph

Graph