Review: Following you home from school: A critical review and synthesis of research on cyberbullying victimization

Research on the predictors of 3 bully status groups (bullies, victims, and bully victims) for school-age children and adolescents was synthesized using meta-analytic procedures. The primary purpose was to determine the relative strength of individual and contextual predictors to identify targets for prevention and intervention. Age and how bullying was measured were also considered as moderators. From an original pool of 1,622 studies conducted since 1970 (when research on bullying increased significantly), 153 studies were identified that met criteria for inclusion. A number of common and unique predictors were found for the bully status groups. The implications of the meta-analytic findings for future research on bullying and victimization prevention and intervention are discussed.

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Predictors of Bullying and Victimization in Childhood and Adolescence: A Meta-analytic Investigation

This article presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs in schools. Studies were included if they evaluated the effects of an anti-bullying program by comparing an intervention group who received the program with a control group who did not. Four types of research design were included: a) randomized experiments, b) intervention-control comparisons with before-and-after measures of bullying, c) other intervention-control comparisons, and d) age-cohort designs. Both published and unpublished reports were included. All volumes of 35 journals from 1983 up to the end of May 2009 were hand-searched, as were 18 electronic databases. Reports in languages other than English were also included. A total of 622 reports concerned with bullying prevention were found, and 89 of these reports (describing 53 different program evaluations) were included in our review. Of the 53 different program evaluations, 44 provided data that permitted the calculation of an effect size for bullying or victimization. The meta-analysis of these 44 evaluations showed that, overall, school-based anti-bullying programs are effective: on average, bullying decreased by 20–23% and victimization decreased by 17–20%. Program elements and intervention components that were associated with a decrease in bullying and victimization were identified, based on feedback from researchers about the coding of 40 out of 44 programs. More intensive programs were more effective, as were programs including parent meetings, firm disciplinary methods, and improved playground supervision. Work with peers was associated with an increase in victimization. It is concluded that the time is ripe to mount a new program of research on the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs based on these findings.

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Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: a systematic and meta-analytic review

Victimization on the Internet through what has been termed cyberbullying has attracted increased attention from scholars and practitioners. Defined as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text” (Patchin and Hinduja 2006:152), this negative experience not only undermines a youth's freedom to use and explore valuable on-line resources, but also can result in severe functional and physical ramifications. Research involving the specific phenomenon—as well as Internet harassment in general—is still in its infancy, and the current work seeks to serve as a foundational piece in understanding its substance and salience. On-line survey data from 1,378 adolescent Internet-users are analyzed for the purposes of identifying characteristics of typical cyberbullying victims and offenders. Although gender and race did not significantly differentiate respondent victimization or offending, computer proficiency and time spent on-line were positively related to both cyberbullying victimizati...

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Cyberbullying: An exploratory analysis of factors related to offending and victimization.

Background Children with intellectual disability are at heightened risk for behaviour problems and diagnosed mental disorder. Methods The present authors studied the early manifestation and continuity of problem behaviours in 205 pre-school children with and without developmental delays. Results Behaviour problems were quite stable over the year from age 36-48 months. Children with developmental delays were rated higher on behaviour problems than their non-delayed peers, and were three times as likely to score in the clinical range. Mothers and fathers showed high agreement in their rating of child problems, especially in the delayed group. Parenting stress was also higher in the delayed group, but was related to the extent of behaviour problems rather than to the child's developmental delay. Conclusion Over time, a transactional model fit the relationship between parenting stress and behaviour problems: high parenting stress contributed to a worsening in child behaviour problems over time, and high child behaviour problems contributed to a worsening in parenting stress. Findings for mothers and fathers were quite similar.

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Pre-school children with and without developmental delay: behaviour problems and parenting stress over time

Gender differences in self-reported internalizing symptoms of children in grades 3-6 were investigated. Using the Internalizing Symptoms Scale for Children (ISSC), and normative data from a large, nationwide sample, self-reported internalizing symptom scores of boys (n = 876) were compared to those of girls (n = 840). Total internalizing scores of girls were significantly (p < .001) larger than those of boys, indicating a higher degree of self-reported internalizing symptoms. The average scores of the girls were approximately one third of a standard deviation higher than the average scores of the boys. Using a discriminant function analysis, the ISSC item scores were found to be reasonably effective in classifying subjects by gender. Seven critical self-report items that contributed the most to the separation of subjects by gender were identified. Implications of this study for psychoeducational assessment practice, early identification of internalizing problems, and subsequent intervention efforts are di...

An Evaluation of Gender Differences in Self-Reported Internalizing Symptoms of Elementary-Age Children

The importance of obtaining information regarding social behavior in differing social environments was examined through the use of the School Social Behavior Scales and the Home and Community Social Behavior Scales. These instruments were designed to provide information regarding student's social behavior in the school and home settings, respectively. Social behavior of 122 students in grades 6-8 who participated in a prevention program for behaviorally at-risk youth was rated by a parent, general education teacher and at-risk program teacher. Parents and special program teachers of the at-risk students were more likely to provide positive ratings of the student's behaviors than their general education teachers. Parents and general education teachers also rated students higher in negative or antisocial behaviors than the at-risk program teachers. Internal consistency coefficients for the Social Competence and Antisocial Behavior scales of the two measures were .95 or higher across all three raters. Correl...

Cross Informant Comparisons of the Home and Community Social Behavior Scales and the School Social Behavior Scales

Parents' and teachers' ratings of social competence and problem behaviors for 164 special education students in grades K-3 were measured using the Social Skills Rating System. Weak to moderate relationships were found between parents' and teachers' ratings. Gender comparisons within the study group revealed mixed findings: teachers' ratings indicated that girls had better social skills but relatively similar levels of problem behaviors than boys, but parents' ratings indicated that boys were rated as having higher levels of both social skills and problem behaviors than girls. These results provide some additional evidence for the convergent validity of the SSRS and also suggest that source and setting variance strongly influence behavior ratings. These results also raise some interesting questions regarding gender differences in social behavior of young children with disabilities.

Parent-Teacher Concordance and Gender Differences in Behavioral Ratings of Social Skills and Social-Emotional Problems of Primary-Age Children with Disabilities.

In this study 58 learning-disabled (LD), 48 mentally retarded (MR), 55 emotional-behavioral disordered (EBD), and 58 regular education (RE) students in grades one through six were compared on levels of social skills and problem social behaviors. Subjects were teacher-rated on the School Social Behavior Scales (SSBS; Merrell, 1993a). LD and MR groups had similar levels of adjustment, which were significantly poorer than the RE group, but significantly better than the EBD group. SSBS scores were found to predict overall group membership patterns to a significant extent and were most effective at predicting group membership of RE and EBD subjects, but less effective at predicting group membership of LD and MR subjects. Findings highlight the importance of positive and negative social functioning as discriminating variables and lend support to the discriminant validity of the SSBS and its use as a research, screening, and assessment tool.

Teacher Ratings of Student Social Behavior as a Predictor of Special Education Status: Discriminant Validity of the School Social Behavior Scales

The development and factor structure of the Internalizing Symptoms Scale for Children (ISSC), a new self-report measure for assessing internalizing symptomatology in children, is detailed Development of the ISSC was driven by the lack of a children's self-report instrument designed specifically to assess the broad domain of internalizing symptomatology, as well as research findings showing a high degree of comorbidity among internalizing syndromes (eg, depression, anxiety, somatic complaints, social withdrawal) Thorough and methodologically rigorous procedures were employed during the development of the ISSC to ensure strong content validity as well as clinical utility Exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic procedures were utilized on the 54-item ISSC research protocol, resulting in a strong two factor solution for the 48 items retained Factor 1, Negative Affect/General Distress, includes items that indicate the presence of internalizing symptoms, or in some cases, the absence of optimistic or functional emotional states Factor 2, Positive Affect, includes items describing positive affect incompatible with internalizing symptoms, or in some cases, items that reflect the absence of internalizing symptoms Results of the factor analyses are discussed in terms of previous research on affectivity and specific internalizing syndromes or disorders Potential uses of the ISSC, as well as further research needed, are described Implications of the present investigation for future assessment and classification studies in the area of child psychopathology are reviewed © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Kenneth W. Merrell

Papers

An Evaluation of Gender Differences in Self-Reported Internalizing Symptoms of Elementary-Age Children

Cross Informant Comparisons of the Home and Community Social Behavior Scales and the School Social Behavior Scales

Parent-Teacher Concordance and Gender Differences in Behavioral Ratings of Social Skills and Social-Emotional Problems of Primary-Age Children with Disabilities.

Teacher Ratings of Student Social Behavior as a Predictor of Special Education Status: Discriminant Validity of the School Social Behavior Scales

Development and factor structure of a self‐report measure for assessing internalizing symptoms of elementary‐age children