Ecological Factors of Being Bullied Among Adolescents: a Classification and Regression Tree Approach

Abstract

Being bullied is a well-recognized trauma for adolescents. Bullying can best be understood through an ecological framework since bullying or being bullied involves risk factors at multiple contextual levels. The purpose of the study was to identify the risk and protective factors that best differentiate groups along with the outcome variable of interest (being bullied) using Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis. The study used the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) data collected from a nationally representative sample of students in grades six through ten during the 2005-2006 school years. This study identified that for adolescents 12 and younger, lower parental support is a critical risk factor associated with bullying and among those 13 to 14 with lower parent support, adolescent with higher academic pressure reported experiencing more bullying. For the older group of adolescents (aged 15 and older), school related factors were identified to increase the risk level of being bullied. There was a critical age (15 years old) for implementing victimization interventions to reduce the damage from being bullied. Service providers working with adolescents aged 14 and less should focus more on familyoriented intervention and those working with adolescents aged 15 and more should offer peer-or school-related interventions.

Risk Factors Associated with Peer Victimization and Bystander Behaviors among Adolescent Students

“…Nevertheless, it was acceptable to adopt self-report forms to investigate the topic [ 51 ]. Moreover, this study did not paid close attention to cyber-victimization, which may do more harm to adolescents [ 52 , 53 , 54 ]. Thirdly, as a results of the data of this study were collected based on participants’ recall about past events, whereby participants were requested to recall their peer victimization states during the last semester and bystander behaviors in the last six month, recall bias was difficult to avoid.…”

Vitimização por bullying e fatores associados em estudantes brasileiros com idade de 13 a 17 anos: estudo populacional

“…The finding regarding the age of 13-year-olds is in disagreement with the present study, however, the relationship between age and being bullied was similar to the results of this study. Previous investigations have shown a higher prevalence of being bullied in younger adolescents 31,32 and with lower levels of schooling [33][34][35] . Thirteen-year-olds were more likely to become targets of bullying when they were under academic pressure 35 .…”

“…Previous investigations have shown a higher prevalence of being bullied in younger adolescents 31,32 and with lower levels of schooling [33][34][35] . Thirteen-year-olds were more likely to become targets of bullying when they were under academic pressure 35 . Although the literature shows similarities with our study in terms of more bullying in the youngest group, it did not find a significant association between schooling level and being bullied.…”

Bullying Victimization in Schools: Why the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model Is Essential

“…Classification tree analysis has been used in various aspects of medicine and public health. Recently, classification tree analysis was used to determine the cost‐effectiveness of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, ecological factors of being bullied among adolescents, and a machine learning approach to identify cyberbullies …”