Health Impact of Bullying among Students

Introduction 

The purpose of this paper is to identify the major concern relating to bullying in schools. In the past decade, there have been issues with the consequences of bullying in schools and society. Some scholars argue that bullying in schools results from poor security. Currently, the issue of victimization in schools has not been successfully solved as it occurs and affects many schools in the US. Efforts have been dedicated to increasing the awareness of bullying in Australia and other parts of the world to eliminate the vice in the society. The issue of mistreatment in schools has raised concerns for researchers on the prevalence, impacts, and seriousness. According to the National Centre against Bullying, schools staffs and security providers should ensure that they provide a clear definition of the term “bullying” and implement anti-bullying programs to deal with school tormenters. 

Review of Literature 

School violence has raised concerns about the safety and security of students. During each academic year, the issue of bullying in schools is experienced and defined by the common expressions of aggressiveness in the peer setting (Menesini&Salmivalli, 2017). According to Menesini and Salmivalli (2017), the aspect of bullying began over forty years ago and can be defined as a deliberate action carried out repeatedly by an individual or a cluster against a person without self-defense. Bullying involves physical behaviors such as hitting a person, verbal attacks and relational or social aggression such as rumor spreading. An action is considered to be a bully if there is repetition over time, intention to inflict harm, and an imbalance of power.  

The different ways of measuring bullying in schools affect prevalence. In the US, the vice is widespread and accounts for the largest percentage of underreported safety problems. Currently, police have assumed the role of helping school officials to create safety among students. Besides the efforts to input police officers in schools, the school management should ensure that the law enforcement agencies they are dealing with have a favorable way of providing safety to students. However, the most suitable technique for dealing with bullying in schools is through the management approaching the issue. Police provide safety of students from harrying by encouraging the management and perhaps students to address the issue. According to research, school administrators are better equipped to address the issue of victimization in schools than the police.  

Popular beliefs hold that most hounding takes place outside the school while in actual sense, most intimidation takes place on the way to and from school rather than in school. Bullying is associated with long-term harmful effects on both the bully and the victim (MansourAl-Ali &Shattnawi, 2018). Currently, the violence among adolescents in schools has raised serious concerns due to the exposure to public health problems. Immediately after getting tormented, a victim may experience physical injury with headache and sleep disturbances after some time. There is no long-term physical health problems associated with harrying except for those resulting from the effects of the bully such as anxiety (Rivara&Menestrel, 2016). Hunter and Colleagues (2014) conducted a research to examine the health effects of bullying on students. The research involved 5420 Scottish adolescents and indicated that students involved in mistreatment are twice more likely to experience difficulties with sleep compared to those not involved in the vice.  

Besides individual to individual bullying, schools also experience electronic aggression referred to as cyber-bullying. The practice is experienced by students where they are bullied across different electronic media platforms. Usually, the type of hounding is practiced out of the school premises hence cannot be controlled by the school staff and administrators. It involves posting anonymous messages online on different social media platforms which may be humiliating a student. The consequences of cyber-bullying are similar to those of traditional bullying (Fullchange& Furlong, 2016). A victim of cyber-bullying is affected mentally and experiences stress which damages the health of the individual.  

Variables 

A dependent variable is defined as the variable that is being measured while the one that changes on its own is the independent variable. In this study, the independent variable is bullying while the dependent variable is physical health since the study focuses on the impact of bullying in schools. The occurrence of victimization may change in a school setting while the consequences of the previous harrying do not change with ease. Irrespective of traditional or cyber-bullying, the physical and mental damage on the affected remains constant. 

Research Hypothesis 

In research, a hypothesis is expressed by the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. 

Hypothesis: Students exposed to bullying, both those tormented and the tormenter, are more likely to experience health problems compared to those not involved in the vice at all. 

Population/ Sample 

The participants selected for this study were those students enrolled during the 2018-2019 academic school year. The students were selected from 20 different secondary schools doing Grades 9-12 in ten suburban and urban school districts, which were situated near San Francisco and San Diego, California. Besides, students came from comprehensive schools, meaning that the participants were selected regardless of their academic achievements. 100 students from each school were selected randomly for participation, giving a total of 2000 participants. About 72% of the selected participants offered usable responses. 

The selection of the participants also considered grades’ distribution, where 24% of the students were in grade nine, 25% in grade ten, 28% in grade eleven, and 23% in grade twelve. The sample population was also evenly distributed across gender, where 49% were female while 51% were male. Age was also put into consideration, where participants’ age ranged between 13 and 17 years. The mean age was 16. 2 years, while the standard distribution was 1.3 years. Another demographic used for the selection of the sample population was ethnic and social backgrounds. In this regard, 58% were Latinos, 17% were whites, 8% were blacks, 6% were Asians, 2% were Native Hawaiian, while 9% were linked to two or more ethnic backgrounds. Generally, the demographics used for this sample selection was an actual representation of the overall students found in California’s secondary schools. According to California Department of Education (2013), the California Latino students make the largest percentage of up to 51% of the total secondary school students in the region. Therefore, this research was justifiable to have the sample size with the largest percentage of the participants being Latinos. The whites, on the other hand, make about 27% of the total California secondary school students (“California Department of Education”, 2013). Overall, the sample population used for this research paper was recommendable because it used a reasonable number of students (2000), considered various grades, had even distribution of gender, and considered students’ ethnicity. 

Research Design 

This research utilized the true classical experiment method of research design. In this regard, both confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory analyses were first conducted to classify the participants into two main groups: those who had prior experience of bullying and those who had no bullying experience. Then the sample was randomly split into two identical groups using the SPSS random case selection utility; as proposed by Solberg and Olweus (2003). The first group (1000 students) was used for exploratory factor analyses, while the second group (1000 students) was used for the confirmatory factor analyses aimed at examining the structured gender invariance. 

The next step was to categorize the students into three major groups. The first group comprised of those students who had not encountered any incidence of bullying for the last one year; the second group comprised of those students who had experienced some incidences of mild bullying for the last one year; and the third group represented those students who reported frequent experience in bullying (at least once in every month) for the last one year. This step was crucial as it was used to test the probability of bullying to cause psychological distress. Thus, based on the information given by the students who had no prior experience in bullying, those who had little experience in bullying, and those who had experienced frequent bullying, it was possible to determine the relationship between the frequency of bullying and psychological distress. The final study design involved the performance of a MANOVA test on the entire sample population (Solberg & Olweus, 2003). Four dependent variables were tested, which included emotional competence, engaged living, belief-in-self, and belief-in-others (Solberg & Olweus, 2003). The independent variable in this case was the level of bullying. To account for the four comparisons (emotional competence, engaged living, belief-in-self, and belief-in-others), a corrected alpha level was used. 

Data Collection Methods 

This study design used multiple methods of data collection. The primary method of data collection used in this research was interviews with the selected participants. Two types of interviews were conducted. The first type of interview was verbal interview with the students from the various selected secondary schools. Verbal interview was critical as it accorded the interviewers with the opportunity to rate the emotional feelings of the interviewees using their tonal variations. The second type of the interview was the use of questionnaires. Questionnaires were given to the selected participants to answer independently. Questionnaire interviews also played a crucial role of giving the participants an opportunity to give their full expressions without much interference or pressure. Prior to the interviews, all participants were assured of their privacy and confidentiality. Participants were also accorded with the opportunity to choose to participate or not. Overall, the interviews played an integral part in providing the researchers with first-hand information regarding the frequency of bullying and its psychological effects on both the bullies and the victims. 

Another method of data collection used in this research was observation. In this case, observers, most of which were teachers, were commissioned with the task of observing and recording any incidences of bullying together with their effects in their respective schools. The participating teachers were assured of their anonymity to ensure that they provided all the required information, and to eliminate cases of biasness. The final method of data collection was examination of the existing data available in the various school data bases regarding bullying and victimization. In this case, school magazines and teachers’ records in various schools were examined. The existing data available in the school data bases played a vital role in availing true records of the cases of bullying in schools and their possible psychological effects on both the bullies and the victims. 

References  

California Department of Education . ( 2013 ). Enrollment by ethnicity for 2012-13. Retrieved from  http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/ 

Fullchange, A., & Furlong, M. J. (2016). An Exploration of Effects of Bullying Victimization From a Complete Mental Health Perspective. Sage journals, 6 (1). 

MansourAl-Ali, N., & Shattnawi, K. K. (2018, March 21). Bullying in School. Health and Academic Achievement . 

Menesini, E., & Salmivalli, C. (2017). Bullying in schools: the state of knowledge and effective interventions. Journal of Psychology, Health and Medicine, 22 (1), 240-253. 

Rivara, F., & Menestrel, S. L. (2016). Consequences of Bullying Behavior. In F. Rivara, & S. L. Menestrel, Preventing Bullying through Science, Policy, and Practice (pp. 113-160). Washington DC: The National Academies Press. 

Solberg, M. E., Olweus, D. (2003). Prevalence estimation of school bullying with the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire. Aggressive Behavior, 29, 239-268. doi: 10.1002/ab.10047