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The definition of bullying has evolved to include exclusion, verbal threats, physical harm, mocking, theft, spreading rumors, extortion and unkind gestures (Koo, 2007). It can be summarized in four words: “Power, pain, persistence and premeditation” (Koo, 2007, p. 113-114).

Perceptions of bullying

Teachers play a central role in safeguarding students from harassment. However, their perception toward bullying is less known. Duong and Bradshaw (2013) examined the degree to which teachers’ perceived threat and perceived efficacy influenced their probability of bullying intervention. Additionally, the authors analyzed if the level (primary or secondary school) at which a teacher taught and the years of teaching experience moderated the relations between perceived threat and perceived efficacy with probability of intervening. Perceived efficacy was strongly associated with teachers’ probability of intervening in bullying unlike perceived threat which showed low results. This indicates that anti-bullying programs must aim at nurturing teachers’ confidence about their ability of dealing with bullying situations. In addition, any proposed anti-bullying strategies should be proven to be effective proofed that they are effective if teachers’ are to implement them (Duong and Bradshaw, 2013). Nevertheless, Interventions interventions with a that purpose to raise teachers’ awareness about perceived threat should also be taken into account as it will further improve the probability of intervening.

Secondly, perceived threat was not associated with the teachers’ probability of intervening irrespective of the school-level (Duong and Bradshaw, 2013). This assumption is based on the elementary schools teachers’ belief believe that younger students are less likely to engage in bullying while secondary school teachers believe that older students can personally handle bullying. The result on the secondary school-level was not expected because it is believed that bullying behaviors tend to increase at secondary schools, resulting in perceived threat associated with the probability of intervention (Duong and Bradshaw, 2013). This demonstrates the weak association between perceived threat and probability of intervening for the two groups. Perceived efficacy however, continued to be strongly related with the probability of intervening.

With regards to the teachers’ experience on bullying responses, perceived threat was not associated with the probability of bullying intervention among the less experienced teachers (Duong and Bradshaw, 2013). However, there was a strong association between the two among the more experienced teachers. Chances are that the less experienced teachers’ teachers value their ability to respond to bullying behaviorscomma hence,no comma perceived threat is not associated with their probability of intervening (Duong and Bradshaw, 2013). The impacts of perceived efficacy were high among teachers with few years teaching experience unlike teachers’ with more experience.

Sahin (2010) stated that teachers had different definitions of bullying. Notable terms included in various definitions were physical attack, searching for justice, emotion hurt and jackboot. The usage of same some expressions to describe bullying may be associated with their ideologies that they are not able to separate the meanings of violence and bullying. A frequent emphasis on the above terms definitions implies that teachers only take into account physical actions as bullying. This condition may be a result of both the teachers’ lack of knowledge about peer bullying and features of the atmosphere in which they lived in the recent years.

It could be stated that the reason for mentioning physical injuries and violence when describing bullying were driven by the cultural environment of the Sahin’s (2010) study group. This study was based in Turkey, a region where violence is rampant. Similarly, it could be that witnessing violent actions may affect teachers’ perceptions and that is why teachers perceive bullying as actions and use expressions such as physical insult, hit, and beat when defining bullying. Others indicate that verbal and physical bullying are frequently experienced in schools, with social exclusion being less significant (Aceves, Hinshaw, Mendoza-Denton, and Page-Gould, 2009) no parenthesis here; Duy, 2013).Bullying was reported to be perceived as the second worst form of violent behavior after drug abuse (Dake, Price, Telljohann, and Funk, 2003).

Incidence of bullying

In Canada, 85% of teachers reported taking action against controlled bullying (Dake et al., 2003). The teachers were ready to confront a bully. However, only 35% of students reported bullying incidents (Dake et al., 2003). The great variation demonstrates that much of the bullying experienced by the students was not reported. This sentiment is supported by McCormac (2014) who stated that bullying is not normally reported by students due to the perception that they would not be listened to, that they would be given no assistance, or that they feared retaliation.

According to McCormac (2014), 36% of the victims between eleven and seventeen years of age reported bullying incidents while 64% did not. Physical bullying was most often reported but other forms such as exclusion, spreading rumors, being coerced to do undesired things, and ridicule were rarely reported. The students who reported bullying perceived that staff handled the problems seriously. Almost 99% of the teachers felt an obligation to prevent bullying (Dake et al., 2003).

Around twenty-eight percent of students between twelve and eighteen years of age admit having experienced cyber, verbal or physical bullying (Ansary, Elias, Greene, and Green, no comma (2015). The likelihood of being bullied at elementary school level was 19% in the U.S., 11% in Finland, and 50% in Ireland. Dake et al. (2003) reported the rate of bullying others was 14% in the U.S., 4% in Finland and around 50% in Ireland. High cases of bullying took place in primary schools and steadily declined in secondary schools. The most notorious sites for bullying were playfield, classroom and hallways.

The effects of bullying

The rising cases of school-based suicides and homicides have attracted academic scholars to critically investigate the root causes behind bullying. The 1999 attack at Columbine High School by two teenagers was devastating. It created an image that schools were no longer safe havens for the children, teachers, staff, and any other person within the school building and grounds. The two perpetrators killed themselves after killing thirteen people and injuring twenty three others. The shooting was linked to bullying (Tonso, 2002).

Bullying has taken a new turn, now occurring on social networking sites (Sahin, 2010). Students are using cell phones and computers to send abusive messages and threats to other students via social networking sites. As an example of an extreme outcome, a thirteen year old boy committed suicide due to cyber bullying (Dake et al., 2003).

Teachers blamed parents’ attitudes, social media, family environment, Internet, and socio-economic status as the main elements that contributed to bullying (Dake et al., 2003).Another cause of bullying was that bullies had a history of being bullied, persecuted, attacked, threatened or injured themselves (Duy, 2013).

Bullying has a negative effect on the victims’ schooling. Its sociological and psychological effects continue to the late stages of life. The effects are also felt by the bullies and witnesses. Skinner, Babinski, and Gifford (2014) reported that bullying caused lower grades. Similarly, a survey on grade 10 students by Vreeman and Carroll (2007) showed that the victims were more likely to get suspensions and have higher absenteeism rates. Bullying sometimes at fourteen years led to convictions; personal violence and drug abuse were common in bullies in at later years (Ahtola, Haataja, Kärnä, Poskiparta, and Salmivalli, 2013).

Other effects of bullying are lack of sleep, lack of social acceptance, anxiety, anger, fear, hostility, helplessness feelings, and low self-esteem (Juvonen, Yueyan & Espinoza, 2011).,period loneliness, suicide attempts, problems with socialization, Breaking the law is common among bullies. Examples are is carrying a weapon, vandalism, and general problems adhering to the law, absenteeism, fighting, stealing, and future engaging in criminal behaviors. Particularly affecting school work are in the future, mental disorders, low school bonding, and absenteeism,period Bullying involves health issues such as headaches, fatigue, stomachaches and lack of appetite (Juvonen, Yueyan & Espinoza, 2011). This was a world record for sentence length so I broke it up for you.

Preventing bullying

The incidence of bullying can be reduced by enacting anti-bullying laws. A federal law, Cyberbullying Enacted Legislation, was passed in 2006 to make cyber bullying a crime. In 2008, California passed a law allowing the school administrators to discipline cyber bullies (Ansary et al., 2015). Moreover, several conferences were held in 2011 to find bullying prevention measures. Edmondson and Zeman (2011) recommended that the government must raise bullying awareness, publicize prevention measures, and pass anti-bullying laws. Television media must also air bullying-education programs and reduce children’s exposure to programming the programs which foster fosters bullying. Programs which portray manhood, video gaming and bravery can encourage bullying as students imitate them as role models.

Many schools are also implementing anti-bullying interventions (Ahtola et al., 2013). Interventions utilize strategies for reforming student behaviors and attitudes. Common examples of intervention measures are using informative activities, anti-bullying teachings, parents’ meetings, organizing seminars, and forming committees. Sahin (2010) observed that some schools did not align preventive actions with a specific program in Turkey. This was attributed to lack of research on bullying prevention. Programs which focus focused on peer engagement or minimal intervention were ineffective while video presentations were more effective.

A whole-school approach can minimize bullying. Dake et al. (2003) found that around 86% of elementary school teachers counseled both victims and bullies. In Canada, teachers never or only occasionally conversed with students on bullying. This mechanism is reactionary and not preventive and does not fit with the whole-school approach. A whole-school approach changes classroom and school rules aimed at the behavior, changes student perceptions, and assists students to comprehend bullying effects (Vreeman& Carroll, 2007). It also involves teacher training, conflict resolution training, and counseling. A notable example of a whole-school approach is the bullying prevention program of Norway (Dake et al., 2003). Their program comprises parents parents’ awareness, student bully questionnaires for students, organizing anti-bullying conference conferences, supervision during breaks, operation of a bullying prevention committee, classroom rules rebuking bullying, regular classroom meetings, and holding talks with bullies and their parents . The program reduced the incidence of bullying by half.

Another example is the ‘Steps to Respect’ Steps to Respect (STR) program (McCormac, 2014). Observation of students in elementary school showed that bystander feedback accelerated bullying. In consequence of this, the STR a ‘Steps to Respect’ (STR) program was introduced and it encouraged friendship, acknowledging and responding to bullying, less aggression, more positivity in playground behavior, less acceptance of bullying, increased bystander responsibility, decline in gossip, and increased adult responsiveness to bullying. Students’ perceptions also improved after the program. The teachers commented that the program was useful. Sahin (2010) concludes that programs should be long term and linked to the school context and all the stakeholders should be involved for them to be effective. In sum, a whole-school approach lowers violence, increases victim empathy and improves victims’ self-efficacy.

Teachers should also undergo in-service training conducted by competent trainers on peer bullying because it is apparent that the teachers’ failure to develop anti-bullying activities is related to insufficient training in the area (Sahin, 2010). The training should further include activities that improve the teachers’ confidence levels in dealing with bullying. Teachers should also voluntarily take part in developing anti-bullying programs. Parents should further monitor their children’s online activities and establish policies on technology utilization to end cyber bullying.

Summary and Conclusions

Bullying has probably existed throughout human history, but has been documented for hundreds of years. It is devastating if left unaddressed with increased cases of homicides and suicides taking toll. Definitions of bullying vary somewhat from culture to culture, but it is generally agreed that it can involve much more than the well-known physical aggression and recently cyber bullying has become frequent and sometimes deadly. It is widely accepted that bullying is underreported, but reports indicate an incidence of 15-20% in most countries. The effects of bullying can be immediately tragic (death), but can include poorer grades as well as sociological and psychological effects that can last for a lifetime. Generally, there have been reduced bullying incidents following bullying interventions such as the passing of anti-bullying laws, adoption of whole-school approach programs and increased stakeholder involvement in ending the practice. In conclusion, it is a wakeup call for every individual connected to schools to be actively involved in preventing bullying to make schools safe for children. The parents must also be open and monitor their children to look for signs of bullying rather depending on teachers to take on full responsibility of prevention of bullying.

Methods

The main purpose of this study will be to compare evaluate how students and teachers perceive bullying. Therefore, descriptive research will be employed. Descriptive research is suitable while conducting a study on topics relating to attitudes, perceptions, and knowledge. This technique needs no experimentation but rather grants presents a picture about the conditions that exist at the time of the survey. manner in which activities are. It also forms the base for building other follow-up studies. A small sample will be used due to limited financial and time constraints. This will almost ensure that no differences will be detected despite their possible presence will be detected. Additionally, a shortened short survey will be developed. adopted. This pilot study will be exploratory. Formal research will might be conducted after completing the research if it will be necessary. this pilot study if it seems warranted.

Subjects

All subjects will be drawn from Happy Hollow Elementary School school, Arkansas. This survey will consider Five students participants from grades 3 to 5 will serve as subjects. The students in grade 2 and below will be excluded from the survey. It is difficult to acquire reliable information from young children because their reading capacities are still low. Five teachers, also from grades 3-5, will also be included in the survey and will constitute the comparison group. Teachers’ who teach the selected classes will only be considered to take part in the study. Convenience sampling will be used for selection of subjects in this pilot study. Random sampling will be used to obtain the required samples from the target population. The demographic data on the respondents’ sex, age, and race will not be collected to conserve their anonymities.

Instrumentation

A questionnaire survey which addresses bullying perceptions and the intervention program used by the school was developed. Six questions items were included in the survey. questionnaire. It included comprised three Likert scale items. This part will gather information about the satisfaction on Steps to Respect program. The respondents will answer with strongly agree (5),agree (4), neutral (3), disagree (2), or to strongly disagree (1). Assigning numerical values of 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 will help the researcher with to compute statistical tests during data analysis. Moreover, two yes or no items questions were included in the questionnaire. This section will survey the students’ experiences on bullying. The last item was open-ended. It will test the students understanding about bullying strategies. The survey questionnaire was validated by the professor teaching the unit of research methods along with feedback from the researcher’s peers.

Procedure

The survey will be administered after a brief meeting with the faculty about the problem of bullying and how the study will help in reducing bullying incidents. Thereafter, the survey will be distributed to each subject by the researcher on in a one-on-one arrangement. criterion. The subjects will be required to complete the six items as soon as they receive it. The researcher will collect all the survey instruments after completion for analysis. It is estimated that the entire survey will take one hour. (For six items? Think 5-10 minutes!)

Explain in a second paragraph how you will administer the survey to six students.

Analysis

Likert-type items. Means and standard deviations for both groups will be calculated for each item. Analysis of differences between the means will be accomplished by means of t-tests, with decisions on significance made at alpha=.05.

Yes/No. A table showing the distribution of yes and no responses for both groups will be developed for each item. This will be used to calculate the probability of such occurrences through use of the Fischer Exact Probability Test and if the calculated value is less than alpha, .05, it will be considered that a significant group difference for that item has been detected.

Open-ended item. Analysis of the open-ended survey item will be accomplished by standard qualitative methodology. Repetitive themes will be sought and discussed in view of previous research findings.

References

Aceves, M., Hinshaw, S., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Page-Gould, E. (2009). Seek help from teachers or fight back? Student perceptions of teachers' actions during conflicts and responses to peer victimization. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(6), 658-669.

Ahtola, A., Haataja, A., Kärnä, A., Poskiparta, E., &Salmivalli, C. (2013). Implementation of anti-bullying lessons in primary classrooms: How important is head teacher support?. Educational Research, 55(4), 376-392.

Ansary, N., Elias, M., Greene, M., & Green, S. (2015). Best practices to address (or reduce) bullying in schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(2), 30-35.

Dake, J., Price, J., Telljohann, S., & Funk, J. (2003). Teacher perceptions and practices regarding school bullying prevention. Journal of School Health, 73(9), 347-349.

Duong, J., & Bradshaw, C. (2013). Using the extended parallel process model to examine teachers’ likelihood of intervening in bullying. Journal of School Health, 83, 422-429.

Duy, B. (2013). Teachers’ attitudes toward different types of bullying and victimization in Turkey. Psychology in The Schools, 50(10), 987-1002. The should not be capitalized.

Edmondson, L., & Zeman, L. (2011). Making school bully laws matter. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 20(1), 33-38.

Juvonen, J., Yueyan, W., & Espinoza, G. (2011). Bullying experiences and compromised academic performance across middle school grades. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 31(1), 152-173.

Koo, H. (2007). A time line of the evolution of school bullying in differing social contexts. Asia Pacific Education Review, 8(1), 107-116.

Marees, N., & Peterman, F. (2010). Bullying in German primary schools: Gender differences, age trends and influence of parents' migration and educational backgrounds. School Psychology International, 31(2), 178-198.

McCormac, M. (2014). Preventing and responding to bullying: An elementary school’s 4year journey. Professional School Counseling, 18(1), 1-14.

Sahin, M. (2010). Teachers’ perceptions of bullying in high schools: A Turkish study. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 38(1), 127-142.

Skinner, A., Babinski, L., & Gifford, E. (2014). Teachers’ expectations and self-efficacy for working with bullies and victims. Psychology in The Schools, 51(1), 72-84.

Tonso, K. (2002). Reflecting on Columbine High: Ideologies of privilege in 'standardized' schools. Educational Studies, 33(4), 391.

Vreeman, R., & Carroll, A. (2007). A systematic review of school-based interventions to prevent bullying. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161(1), 78-88.

Appendix A

Survey Instrument and Informed Consent

SURVEY ON BULLYING

I am: _____a teacher _____a student

Definition: Bullying is an unwanted, repetitive and perceived power imbalance. It can involve exclusion, threats, physical harm, mocking, theft, rumor spread, extortion, or use of unkind gestures.

Please circle your response to items 1-6

1. I have seen bullying at school within the past month.

Yes

No

2. If you reported bullying incidents at school, did you feel your concerns were taken seriously by the school administration?

Yes

No

3. Students enjoyed the read aloud book, Blubber, about students who bully, are bullied or witness bullying.

Strongly agree

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Strongly disagree

4. Students acquired important information from the discussion of the bullying book chaired by their teacher.

Strongly agree

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Strongly disagree

5. The lessons taught by the school counselor on bullying have been helpful.

Strongly agree

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Strongly disagree

6. Please discuss what you think a student should do when he or she is bullied or witnesses another student being bullied. Use the back of this page for your response.

Thank you very much for participating in this survey project!

Informed consent

Bullying remains one of the biggest problems found in primary schools. We have all heard about bullying and its influence on students as a way of alleviating pain. The objective of this study will be to compare students’ and teachers’ views of selected aspects of bullying. Taking part in this survey will help us evaluate current practices and make schools safe places for our children.

Your name must not appear in the survey instrument for anonymity purpose. In addition, your responses will be treated confidentially. We value all information and encourage you to take your time to complete all the listed items. No one is forced to participate in the study. You are free to stop at any stage if you feel uncomfortable. This is a right and refusing to participate or withdrawing at any stage will not demoralize the researcher.

I have had a chance to ask questions about the research and all procedures and now grant my consent to participate.

___________________________ ________________

(Subject’s signature) (Date)

___________________________ ________________

(Witness’ signature) (Date)

___________________________ ________________

(Parent’s signature for minor) (Date)

Rubric for Papers: Qualitative, Review of Literature, Proposal, and Final Paper

(Modified from: http://faculty.uncfsu.edu/jbrooks/FRMS/rubricrsrch.htm)

A – Exemplary: 90-100 percent Name __Helms_____________

B – Proficient: 80-89 percent Topic _Proposal_______________

C – Passing: 70-79 percent Score _90%X125pts=113_______________

*Points are obtained by multiplying the total percentage in the right-hand column by the total points available for the writing assignment.