Prevalence estimation of school bullying with the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire

Abstract

The key aim of the present research was to study the “functionality” of two global variables in the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and to examine the appropriateness of different cutoff points of these variables for prevalence estimation. Several empirical and conceptual analyses strongly attested to the functionality of the two selected variables in terms of construct validity and selected measurement properties. Similarly, a number of analyses indicated that (having been bullied/having bullied other students) “2 or 3 times a month” was a reasonable and useful lower‐bound cutoff point. With this cutoff point, “involved” students, victims, and bullies differed very markedly and in clearly different ways from “non‐involved” students in conceptually related variables. Prevalence estimates derived in this way can be conveniently obtained, have a reasonably well‐defined meaning, can be easily understood by users, and can be reproduced unambiguously by different researchers/administrators and at different times. An important background for the article is the fact that several common methods, including peer nominations, are not well suited for prevalence estimation. Prevalence data for victims, bullies, and bully‐victims are also presented. All data were derived from the New Bergen Project Against Bullying, comprising a sample of 5,171 students from 37 schools in the town community of Bergen, Norway. At the time of the data collection, the spring of 1997, the 2,544 girls and 2,627 boys were in grades 5 through 9, with modal ages of 11 through 15 years. Aggr. Behav. 29:239–268, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Explicit- and Implicit Bullying Attitudes in Relation to Bullying Behavior

“…We used three measures to assess bullying, each containing one bullying-item (it has been shown that bullying can be reliably assessed using one item for bullying behavior, Solberg and Olweus 2003).…”

Four decades of research on school bullying: An introduction.

“…In his early research, Olweus (1978Olweus ( , 1993 distinguished between children who bully others and those who both bully others and are victimized. These "bully victims" have been characterized as hyperactive, impulsive, and as experiencing more peer rejection, more academic difficulties, and more stressful and harsh home environments (see Schwartz, Proctor, & Chien, 2001), but represent only a small portion (1% to 12%) of students (Dulmus et al, 2006;Nansel et al, 2001;Solberg & Olweus, 2003;Spriggs, Iannotti, Nansel, & Haynie, 2007). Over the past four decades, research has also shown that many bullies are socially intelligent (Björkqvist, Österman, & Kaukiainen, 2000;Sutton, Smith, & Swettenham, 1999a, 1999b and enjoy considerable status in the peer group (Vaillancourt et al, 2003), leading to distinctions between socially marginalized and socially integrated bullies (Farmer et al, 2010).…”

Bullying in the family: sibling bullying

“…There are also similarities regarding age and sex variations. As with peer bullying 53,54 , incidence of sibling victimisation and bullying perpetration shows some decline with age, particularly in physical aggression 1,6,49 , and males are more likely to perpetrate acts of sibling aggression, although there are no clear gender differences in regards to victimisation 1,35,44,55 . While these characteristics show individual associations, the sex and age composition of the sibling relationship can have a significant impact on overall rates, with more sibling bullying reported in male-male 30 or older male-younger female sibling dyads 55 .…”