ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Akbari-balootbangan   A. (1*)
Talepasand   S. (1)






(1*) Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Semnan University, Semnan‎, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
Phone: +989383411790
Fax:
akbariafzal@semnan.ac.ir

Article History

Received:  July  11, 2015
Accepted:  September 8, 2015
ePublished:  September 28, 2015

BRIEF TEXT


Bullying in schools has currently been introduced as a serious global problem regarding the psychology and social health [1].

... [2-20]. It is illustrated in a research by Hulsey that the atmosphere of school, interactions and collaborations between teachers and students and observers of bullying behaviors are among the factors affecting the prevalence of bullying [21].... [22]. Bullying is a factor which threatens discipline in schools, causes chaos and leads to absences and running away from school and further studies [23].

This study aimed to examine the psychometric parameters of bullying prevalence questionnaire in Iranian students.

This is a psychometric descriptive research.

The statistical population of this study consisted of all high schools boys and girls of Qom studying in this city in 2015.

400 people (200 boys and 200 girls) were selected in the age range of 12 and 18 using multi-stage sampling. The mean and the standard deviation of this group`s age was15.37±1.17. For the sampling, first two districts of Qom and then2 schools of each district were randomly selected. One of the schools of each district was for girls and the other one for boys. 100 first, second and third graded high school students were randomly chosen from each school.

Measuring tools: (1) Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire (BPQ). This questionnaire which was designed by Rigby and Sleefor the prevalence of bullying in schools has 20 questions and three components including bullying (I hurt weak children), victim (others beat and pushed me) and social benefit (I like helping people who got hurt).The component of bullying, victim and social benefit each has six, five and four items, respectively and 5other items of the questionnaire are the entertainment questions not being calculated. Questions are rated on a Likert scale from 1 = never to always = 4. Reliability coefficient of this tool has been reported satisfactory in foreign research and the drafters reported the reliability coefficients from 0.69 to 0.91 for the entire questionnaire and its components [17]. (2) Student Subjective Well-Being Questionnaire (SSWQ). This questionnaire was developed by Renshaw in order to complete the questionnaire of students` subjective well-being on the basis of the fundamental principles of Clark and Watson. It contains 16 items measuring the subjective well-being as a four-dimensional structure. Factors included the association with the school, the joy of learning, educational objectives and academic effectiveness. This tool is placed on a multiple-choice Likert scale (1 = almost never to 4 = almost always). The reliability of this tool was calculated 0.86, 0.72, 0.74, 0.72 and 0.78 by the producers using Cronbach's alpha for the entire test, the subscales of association with the school, the joy of learning, educational objectives and academic effectiveness, respectively indicating the high capability of the tool [24]. This toolwas validated in Iranand the reliability coefficients were calculated 0.87, 0.69, 0.85, 0.73 and 0.78 for the entire tool, the subscales of association with the school, the joy of learning, educational objectives and academic effectiveness[25]. Research method: in order to carry out the study, first the questionnaire was translated from English into Persian by two linguists. Then the problems of translating the items were reviewed and resolved. In a pilot study, the translated questionnaire was given to a sample of 20 students (10 girls and 10 boys). After collecting the questionnaires, the words which were not understandable for students were rewritten and replaced with the closest terms. The final questionnaires were handed to 400 students which 10 questionnaires had been filled incompletely or had not been delivered at all so they were excluded from the analysis. Statistical analysis All statistical analyzes were performed using SPSS22 software and AMOS-21.

Exploratory factor analysis: In order to extract the factors the analysis of principal components was used. In this analysis KMO amount was equal to 0.872 and the value of transferred chi-square of Bartlett test was 1614.691which was significant with 105 degrees of freedom (P≤0.0001). Thus, in addition to the adequacy of sampling, factor analysis based on the studied matrix was justified. As a result, to determine the number of factors the bullying prevalence questionnaire has, indices of specific value, the proportion of explained variance by each factor and Scree diagram were taken into account. On this basis, three factors with specific valueswere determined greater than 1 and these factorsexplained a total of 54.45 percent of the variance of whole questionnaire.Moreover, examining the scree diagram and the total table of explained variance demonstrated that there is a primary major factor (bullying) with the specific value of 3.12 and explains 20.834 percent of the tool`s total variance. Besides that, two other factors are victim and social benefits with the specific values of 2.92 and 2.12 explaining 19.487 and 14.129 % of the questionnaire`s variance, respectively. In Table 1, factor loadings of the questionnaire, alpha coefficient in case of deleting each item, and correlation with the total score have been reported.As seen in the above table, all factor loadings were suitable and significant for the questions. The lowest and highest load factors were related to the questions number 4 and 10 at 0.455 and 0.806, respectively. In another column of this table, the correlation of each question is along with the total score of the testand the results showthat all the correlations were suitable (above 0.3).Furthermore, in the third column of the table, alpha coefficient is presented in case ofomitting any of the items. As seen, for all three factors of bullying, victim and social benefit the value of alpha reduces by omitting one of the items, so none of thequestions of the questionnaire has been putaway from the set of questions. Despite the fact that omitting question number 3 slightly increases the amount of alpha, due to the importance and necessity of this item, it was not deleted from the questionnaire. In addition, this question is of high and proper factor loading which makes it necessary for the questionnaire. Along with what was proposed, reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach's alpha and the results indicated that this amount is 0.81, 0.75, 0.70 and 0.81 for the factor of bullying, victim, the social benefit and the entire questionnaire, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis: internal relations of the items were conceptualized and tested in the form of a three-factor model. Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR), Comparative Fit Index(CFI), Normed Fit,Goodness of Fit Index(GFI) and Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index(AGFI) were used to assess the fitness of the model (Table 2).For fitness indices, several slides have been proposed by experts. For example, an amount equal to or less than 0.05 for root mean square error of approximation, an amount equal to or more than 0.96 for comparative fit index and normed fit, an amount equal to or less than 0.07forstandardized root mean square residual indicatethe adequate fitness of the model [26].On the other side, it has been suggested that if the indices of comparative fit, goodness of fit and adjusted goodness of fit are greater than 0.9 and the indices of root mean square error of approximation and root mean square residual are less than 0.05, they imply very favorable fit as the fit of smaller than 0.1 implies a favorable fit [27]. Fitness indices of the questionnaire’s final form were examined. Based on the findings, some of the fitness indices suggest favorable fitness of data-model and some other indices indicate the poor fitness of data-model. Reviewing the validity of bullying prevalence questionnaire: in order to calculate the validity of bullying prevalence questionnaire, it was simultaneously implemented with the questionnaires ofsubjective well-being, discipline and academic achievement. The mentioned variables were implementedsimultaneously between samples and the data was analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient. According to the results of Table 3, there is a significant negative correlation between the bullying prevalence and subjective well-being (r=-0.10 and P=0.05) and educational achievement (r=-0.18 and P=0.01) while the prevalence of bullying did not have any significant correlation with students` discipline. Additionally, the results of other variables’ relations are presented in the table.

To examine the reliability of bullying prevalence questionnaire (BPQ), Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used. The findings of this study showed that the reliability ofbullying prevalence questionnaire was high and acceptable. Besides, the reliability of each of the subscales of the questionnaire was high indicating high reliability coefficient of the tool. This finding is consistent with the results of previous studies [17-18, 20-21],which had reported the general reliability of the questionnaire and each of the subscales to be satisfactory. ... [28-33].

Prevention of bullying, reducing it and informing the families, teachers and principals of schools of the symptoms of this problem are entirely necessary. It is recommended to pay attention to training the required skills to these groups.

Despite the strengths, this study had also some limitations. For example, it is not clear to what extent the scores of this tool are related to actual behaviors in everyday life. In this tool, no evidence has been provided for the susceptibility of scores to educational – mental interventions. The third limitation of this study is related toits spatial and temporal scope. This study has been carried outwith high school students of Qom so the findings cannot be generalized to other parts of the country or in case of generalization, precautions must be taken.

The scale of bullying prevalence seems to be a suitable tool for measuring students` bullying due to the ease of implementation, ease of scoring, ease of interpretation, individual and group applicability, practicality, and proper reliability and validity. The researchers can also use it as a valid instrument in psychological and health researches.

Researchers are grateful to all administrators, teachers, staff and students of the schools of Qom for their sincere cooperation with the research team.

Non-declared

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TABLES and CHARTS

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