Erin Anderson and Dr. Betty Y. Ashbaker, Counseling Psychology and Special Education
Introduction
Negative incidents occur in schools every day, many of which go unnoticed by the schools administration and staff. While many teachers and administrators are oblivious to the negative incidents, such as bullying, students are very aware of the bullying and other negative incidents that occur at their school. This is SchoolTipline’s third year and the purpose of this study was to identify any changes in students responses to a questionnaire regarding their willingness to use a website to report negative school incidences, focusing on bullying. As well as to identify gender differences, or similarities that were expressed from the data.
Procedure
Students at Lehi Jr. High participated in the SchoolTipline 1st and 2nd year studies. Both years’ students were asked to complete a 14-question survey. Data was analyzed using the SPSS program. First an analysis was done to compare the 1st years responses to the 2nd years. A second analysis was completed comparing female and male responses for the 2nd year responses.
Analysis
Results showed that there were significant differences (z > +/- 2.0) regarding six of the survey questions, from year one to year two. Results for the gender analysis showed that there were seven questions that were significant. Question 3 “Where did these things (from questions 1 and 2) [physical or verbal bullying] happen to you?” showed significant results in that the location of bullying increased from year 1 to 2 in the following areas: hallways, school buy, playground, and on the way home. Gender analysis showed that significantly fewer females responded that bullying occurred “on the school bus” compared to males. However, significantly more females responded that bullying occurred on the playground and “on the way from school” than males.
Question 4 “When did these things happening to you?” also showed a significant increase in the responses: never, and after school. The increase in “never” responses could be interpreted as a decrease with regards to when bullying is occurring. Gender analysis on question 4 showed that significantly fewer females responded “before school” and “during class” than males.
Question 5 “When this happened to you, who did you report it to?” showed a significant increase in the response: never happened. An increase over the previous year could be interpreted as a decrease in bullying. Gender analysis showed that significantly fewer females responded that they reported to “I did not report to anyone” than males. This could be seen as troubling that girls do not telling people. The first step to help stop bullying is to let other people know so that they can help or get help. However more females responded that they report to “friend/student”. This is consistent with others research (Hunter, et al., 2004).
Question 9 “Would you use this website to anonymously report bullying?” also had a significant increase in the response: yes. This is promising because using a website to report bullying has many advantages. Gender analysis showed that question 10 “Would you use this website to anonymously report bullying?” girls responded, “yes” significantly less than males did. This is very interesting, and should be looked
into. Future researchers may want to try and find out why girls don’t want to use a website, or if they would prefer to use something else.
Question 11 “When you have seen someone else get bullied, who did you report to?” had a significant increase in response: No one. This could be interpreted negatively because we do not want students to be silent about bullying, if school administrators are not aware of an issue, how are they supposed to fix it? Gender analysis showed that females responded that they report to “parent” “friend/student” and “teacher” when they see someone else get bullied, significantly more than males. This is important to know that female students are telling people, it is however more important to make sure that the people they are telling, need to tell parents, teachers, or school administrators so that they can handle the situation. Girls responded, “I did not report to anyone” significantly less than did males. Future researchers should look into this, if males are for some reason not reporting to anyone, researchers need to fid out why so that they can help males realize the importance of reporting.
Question 12 “ What stops your from reporting after seeing someone else get bullied?” had significantly more responses with regards to: did not care to report and I reported. The increase in the response “I reported” can be seen as a good thing. This may mean that more people are aware of bullying and knowing the correct way to handle those situations. However question 12 also showed a significant decrease in the response “did not know who to tell.” This could be interpreted that less students don’t know what to do when bullying occurs, and instead they do know that they need to report it. Gender analysis on question 12 showed that girls responded, “did not care to report” significantly less than males did. This could be seen as a good thing, because they don’t report less, that might mean that they are reporting more than males.
Lastly question 13 “What are the most important things school can do to help stop bullying” had a significant increase with the following responses: teaching kids how to get along better, and have anonymous website for reporting. When gender analysis was completed on question 13 it was found that females responded “making rules against bullying” and “the teachers and administrators do not know what is going on with students and bullying” significantly less than males. However females responded “have an anonymous website for reporting” more than males. This is unique because this does not match their response to question 10.
Discussion
This portion of the SchoolTipline project went as expected. Data analysis on the second year of Lehi Jr. High, which had not been previously published, reviled seven questions that had significant differences between the first and second year. Minimal problems arose during the completion of the portion of the SchoolTipline project. It proved to be difficult to get the existing data from previous researchers, but once the data that had previously been collected is was easily analyzed. Future researchers should focus on the differences that were found between male and female responses. They should investigate the reasoning’s behind the differences, and make any needed adjustments to SchoolTipline. Researchers who investigate other bullying issues should also acknowledge these differences. Over this entire project went well and as planned. It was interesting to see all the differences between male and female responders, as well as the differences between 1st and 2nd year responses.
References
- Hunter, C.J., Boyle, J. M.E., & Warden, D. (2004). Help seeking amongst child and adolescent victims of peer-aggression and bullying: the influence of school-stage, gender, victimization, appraisal, and emotion. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 375-390