Bullying in college by students and teachers

Adolescence, Spring, 2004 by Mark Chapell, Diane Casey, Carmen De la Cruz, Jennifer Ferrell, Jennifer Forman, Randi Lipkin, Megan Newsham, Michael Sterling, Suzanne Whittaker

This definition of bullying was followed by 5 questions: (1) Have you ever seen a student being bullied in college by another student? (2) Have you ever been bullied in college by another student? (3) Have you ever seen a student being bullied in college by a teacher? (4) Have you ever been bullied in college by a teacher? (5) Have you ever bullied another student in college? Participants answered each question using one of four response alternatives, with scores ranging from 0 to 3: never = 0; only once or twice since I've been in college = 1; occasionally = 2; very frequently = 3.

Procedure

Participants were recruited on campus, and questionnaires were administered by students trained and supervised by the first author. The exclusive administration of questionnaires by students was done to reduce biasing of responses due to the two questions concerning bullying by teachers.

RESULTS

Table 1 presents the students' responses to the 5 bullying questions. A total of 33.4% of the students (n = 342) reported having seen a student bully another student in college once or twice, with an additional 24.7% (n = 253) having seen this occur occasionally and 2.8% (n = 29) very frequently. A total of 18.5% (n = 190) reported having been bullied in college by another student once or twice, with 5% (n = 51) having been bullied occasionally and 1.1% (n = 11) very frequently. A total of 29.4% (n = 301) reported having seen a teacher bully a student in college once or twice, with 12.8% (n = 131) having seen this occur occasionally and 1.9% (n = 20) very frequently. A total of 14.5% (n = 149) reported having been bullied by a college teacher once or twice, with 4.2% (n = 43) reporting that this had occurred occasionally and .5% (n = 5) very frequently. Finally, a total of 13.4% (n = 137) reported having bullied another student in college once or twice, with 3.2% (n = 33) indicating they had done so occasionally and 1.9% (n = 19) very frequently.

A one-way MANOVA revealed that there were significant sex differences in bullying behaviors, F(5, 1017) = 6.10, p < .0001. Univariate F tests revealed that males (M = .37, SD = .73) bullied other students significantly more than did females (M = .18, SD = .50), F(1, 1017) = 23.54, p < .0001; [[eta].sup.2] = .023 (a small-medium effect; see Cohen, 1988). There were no other significant sex differences in bullying behaviors.

There were significant intercorrelations among the variables (see Table 2). To test the hypothesis that students who had witnessed bullying would be more likely to bully, a multiple regression analysis was conducted using the first four bullying questions as predictor variables, and student bullying (the fifth bullying question) as the dependent variable (see Table 3). As hypothesized, student bullying was predicted by having seen students bully other students (p < .0001), but against expectation, student bullying was not predicted by having seen teachers bully students. Student bullying was also predicted by having been bullied by both students (p < .0001) and teachers (p < .01).