The Study of Bullying

Every day millions of school children in the world experience the physical, emotional, mental, and academic consequences of bullying.  In writings from the early 18^th century one can read about older students harassing younger students to uphold hierarchies (Harris & Petrie, 2003).  Some might think that bullying is mainly a children’s problem; however, every person who has been part of a group context has likely in some form come in contact with the problems of group interaction that we today label as bullying.  In fact, the sort of behaviors that we identify as bullying such as intimidation, coercion and insults are experienced in many social interactions such as those between husbands and wives.  Bullying in the workplace has also been academically investigated since early 1980’s (Leymann, 1996).

The study of school bullying is important as it has a tremendous effect on the life of individuals, groups, and the society as a whole (Harris & Petrie, 2003).  Unfortunately, the violence of one child bullying another is not considered as important as those committed by one adult as another.  However, that does not mean that the effects of bullying are less or shorter in duration.  Bullying can have tremendous effects on a child’s emotional and academic functioning.  Research shows that children who are bullied at school regularly show poor or declining academic performance (Harris & Petrie, 2003).  For these children and their families, the bullying behavior of school mates can lead to such detrimental issues as academic delay and increased drop-out.  Research also shows that children who are bullied are more likely to be engaged in anti-social and criminal behavior (Swearer & Tam, 2003).  The research question is, then: what are the effects of bullying behavior on the academic performance of children in primary and junior high schools?    To gather information on this social science phenomenon and answer this research problem, it is important to devise research questions that could be answered using the scientific method as follows:

1. What tools or measurements should be used to collect data to address the research problem?

2.  How many participants should the researcher(s) include in the study and what methods are to be used in their selection?

3. What gender should the participants in the study be and why?

Research question #1.  A research design plan is a master plan of a research study.  A good design details how to collect data and how to conduct the appropriate statistical analyses after collection.  Quantitative research methods usually involve measurement tools that are used to collect numerical data (Freedman, Purves, & Pisani, 2007).  For example, if a researcher wishes to know how satisfied with life his participants are, he may ask them to mark on a scale of 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).  Surveys and questionnaires are commonly used tools to collect numerical data.  They are self-administered methods of data collection that can be done in person through an interview with a researcher or through other methods such as the phone or the Internet.

Experimental studies are another type of quantitative studies that involve the manipulation of variables and the measurement of outcomes (Freedman et al., 2007).  However, as will be explained later, many aspects of the scientific method are used in social science studies while a few are not for a number of ethical concerns.  Qualitative research methods, on the other hand, do not usually involve numerical data.  Instead, information is collected using an interview-type method or a wider group setting to collect in-depth information.  Focus groups and case studies are commonly used qualitative research methods.

When studying the effects of school bullying on children’s academic performance, it is important to use tools and measurements that will allow the researcher to gather information about the independent variable (bullying behavior) and dependent variable (academic performance).  In essence, the goal of the research problem is to explore the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable (Freedman et al., 2007).  To that end, a number of tools can be administered to measure both variables as follows:

1. Demographic information sheets -  these provide the researchers with basic information such as age, gender, medical and psychological histories, socioeconomic status, and family histories.

2. Bullying behavior – these can be in the forms of:

a. student-filled questionnaires administered to students that ask them if they have engaged in bullying behavior such as “Have you threatened a fellow student in the past week?” or whether they have been subjected to bullying behavior such as “Have you been threatened by a fellow student in the past week?”

b. records from teachers and administration that detail any incidences of a student either engaging in bullying behavior or becoming a victim of bullying behavior.

3. Academic performance records – these are usually performance based grades of students in all subjects.

4. Supplementary information -  these can be:

a. student-filled questionnaires that address issues such as the presence of depressive symptoms or family problems.  These are important in finding out if they are culprits in the poor academic performance of the students.

b. school attendance records which can also be culprits in poor academic performance.

Research question #2.  The number of participants in a school bullying research study depends on the variables that are being studied.  In statistical analysis, the number of different variables that you are examining such as emotional distress and quality of life measures determine the number of participants that are needed to include in the study in order to have sufficient statistical power (Freedman et al., 2007).  Narrowing the research questions to three as is done in this paper ensures that the variables included are directly answering the research questions, which in turn provides information on the social phenomenon of school bullying as a research problem.

In an ideal world, a researcher would have unlimited resources such as money and time to conduct his or her studies.  If interested in a particular school of 2000 students, for example, the researcher would have the resources to distribute questionnaires or conduct interviews with all the students.  However, most researchers are limited in how much money and time they have on any particular study so it is important to choose a representative sample from the target population of 2000 students.  After choosing the right target population, the next step for the researcher is to identify the sampling frame.  A Sampling Frame is a list of common elements that allows the researcher to access the population such as student directories or lists that are kept by teachers and administrators of troubled students (Freedman et al., 2007).  These lists could have identified students in the past as bullied or bullies.  A sampling frame provides valuable information on demographics such as the age of the students, previous medical/psychological issues, and their socioeconomic status, all of which are important when identifying those factors that are related to becoming a bully or a victim of bullying.

The third step in the sampling process is to identify the right Sampling Method for the research (Freedman et al., 2007).  In probability sampling, sample students are chosen from the pool of 2000 based on known probabilities such as the researcher deciding that half of the sample should be from Grades 5 & 6.  Non-probability sampling is when students are chosen without any regard for their probabilities or occurrences; for example, participants will be chosen based on whether they are present during the day that the researchers are coming to school.

The fourth step in the sampling process is to determine the Sample Size (Freedman et al., 2007).  In probability sampling, there are statistical sample size tables that can be used to determine sample size.  These tables are based on the number of variables that are being tested among other things.  In general, the more participants or items in your study, the more accurate the results may be.  Large sample sizes also yield results that are more representative of the population from which they are drawn.

Research question #3.  The genders of study participants is an important aspect of research into bullying behavior and its consequences in school. Researchers have found that girls use more indirect forms of aggression and boys use more direct forms of violence (Yuberro & Navarro, 2006). The researchers concluded that differences in creating gender roles can help us understand the differences in girl’s aggression and boy’s aggressions. With girls, direct aggression is punished while in boys, it confirms their roles as masculine individuals. In other words, using physical and confrontational methods to bully others allows boys to show how masculine they are which is a gender role that is defined, and in some cases, rewarded by society.  For example, male super heroes and action heroes in the media are known for their physical approach to resolving conflict.

Another research done by Swearer and Tam (2003) studied if gender and type of aggression or violence mattered. They found that verbal and physical aggressions were most clearly associated with the social rejection of girls. It showed that the more a girl is physically and /or verbally aggressive the more she gets rejected by both boys and girls. In the case of boys it was the same when it came to verbal but not to physical aggression. Aggression was in general connected with social rejection; the more aggressive a student was, the more likely he or she was to be rejected by classmates. The research also showed that boys tolerated more indirect bullying than girls did.  These research results are important in not only the information that the research question garners but the results that can be collected to address the overall research problem.

The scientific method takes a systematic and methodical approach to answering questions about phenomena (Perry & Perry, 2009).  The social sciences are no exception in using this approach to address societal problems such as bullying.  The scientific method of observation and experimentation has a number of tools that can be used to study the effects of bullying on children’s academic performance.  Does the scientific method provide a complete framework for investigating the 3 research problems that have been identified?  It does to a large extent based on the qualities of the scientific method such as literature reviews, data collection and analysis, and drawing appropriate conclusions.

In many research studies and unless the problem is newly identified, other researchers have probably examined it from different facets, in different contexts and even cultures (Freedman et al., 2007).  Review of past research and current knowledge is important to guide in the development of research tools, the gathering of data, and the analysis of gathered data.   Reviewing past studies has a number of important uses that include examining theoretical concepts that are related to the research problem, identifying the variables that cause the research problem (independent) and the variables that are affected by them (dependent), and selecting the right research study tools.  Literature reviews also help with choosing the right type of statistical analyses to conduct on the data collected, and reaching the right conclusions that answer the research questions given limitations in sample sizes, duration of study, and they type of participants that were involved in the study.

Depending on the nature of the research problem, a researcher may review one or more of these resources to determine what others have found and to design their own study (Freedman et al., 2007).  In most instances, reviewing current knowledge is done through a number of sources such as academic and professional journals, books, Internet websites, archives, interviews and observations, and private and public databases.

The scientific method uses experiments heavily in the physical and natural sciences to explore how some variables cause others (Perry & Perry, 2009).  As a consequence, social science fields such as social psychology and criminology are less likely to use the experimental method of controlling variables because of ethical implications.  For example, a researcher in a school setting cannot expose a child to bullying behavior under any circumstances only to find out if it leads to poor grades.  The observation and recording aspect of the scientific method means that the social science researcher can only record incidences of bullying after they have happened and then try to relate them to academic performance.

There are also other aspects of the scientific method that provide information on the social scientific perspective of phenomenon such as sampling methods and correlating variables to gain information about their relationships (Perry & Perry, 2009).  In this study, the researchers can take into account the influence of such variables as the socioeconomic status of the children to understand the impact of bullying on academic performance.  In this sense, the scientific method is allowing the researchers to not only find out if there is a direct relationship between the independent and dependent variable but also how other variables affect the dependent variable.  Finally, the scientific method allows for an understanding of the differences between boys and girls in how their academic performance is affected by bullying behavior (Yuberro & Navarro, 2006).

References

Freedman, D., Purves, R., and Pisani, R. (2007). Statistics. W.W. Norton & Company. 4th Edition.

Harris, S. and Petrie, G.F. (2003). Bullying, The Bullies, the Victims, the Bystanders. Oxford: A Scarecrow Education Book.

Leymann, H. (1996). The Content and Development of Mobbing at Work. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 5, 165-184.

Perry, J. & Perry E. (2009). Contemporary society: An introduction to social science. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Swearer, S. and Tam, P. (2003). Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Bullying in Middle School Youth. A Developmental Examination Across the Bully/Victim Continuum In: Bullying, Peer Harassment and Victimization in the Schools. The next generation of Prevention Elias M. and Zins J.(ed), The Haworth Press, 63-80.

Yubero, S. and Navarro, R. (2006).  Students and Teachers Views of Gender-Related Aspects of Aggression.  School Psychology International, 27, 488-512.