Association Between Teachers' Responses to Mean Student Behavior and Students' Willingness to Intervene in Bullying

• In Event: Stand Up: Factors Influencing Bystander Behaviors Among Youth

Abstract

Bystanders are often present when bullying occurs (Hawkins, Pepler, & Craig, 2001; Craig & Pepler, 1997). However, they only intervene about one quarter of the time (O’Connell, Pepler, & Chang, 1999) and the likelihood of intervening further decreases as students enter adolescence (Trach, Hymel, Waterhouse, & Neale, 2010). Students reporting greater perceived teacher supportiveness (e.g., caring about students) also report a greater willingness to seek help if they are being bullied (Eliot, Cornell, Gregory, & Fan, 2010). However, prior research has not specifically investigated the association between students’ willingness to intervene as bystanders and their perceptions of teachers’ responses to mean student behavior.

Research Question: The objective of this study is to examine whether students’ perceptions of teachers’ responses to mean student behavior is associated with students’ willingness to intervene in bullying situations.

Methods: Data on students’ willingness to intervene and students’ perceptions of teachers’ responses to bullying was collected from 480 3rd-8th grade students in an urban school as part of school safety planning efforts. Willingness to intervene during bullying incidents was assessed using the University of Illinois Willingness to Intervene Scale (e.g., “When a kid is being teased, I stick up for him or her.”) on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly disagree (1) to Strongly agree (4) (Espelage, Green, & Polanin, 2012). Students were also asked 9 items about how their teachers respond to mean and hurtful student behavior (e.g., “Notice that it is happening,” “Try to stop it”) on a 3-point Likert scale: never (1), sometimes (2), and often (3). These items were created in collaboration with a local public high school for a previous study.

Results: Preliminary analyses found that the most frequent perceived teacher response to mean student behavior (rated as often) was “Support the person who has been hurt” (51.4%). Also, females were more willing to intervene during bullying incidents than males (t=2.68, p=.008). Using linear regression, the nine different teacher responses to mean student behavior were entered into the model as independent variables, with willingness to intervene as the dependent variable, controlling for gender and sex. Two perceived teacher responses were positively related to a greater willingness of students to intervene - “Talk about it with the students who are involved” (B= .948, p=.007) and “Support the person who has been hurt” (B= .843, p=.018). Additional multivariate analyses with both the whole sample and separated by sex will explore other factors related to students’ willingness to intervene, including school belongingness (Goodenow, 1993), attitudes toward bullying (Espelage, Mebane, & Adams, 2004), and psychosocial problems (Goodman, 1997).

Significance: Findings indicate that students are more likely to indicate a willingness to intervene in bullying situations when they perceive their teachers to respond to mean student behavior by either talking to the students who are involved or supporting the student who has been hurt. This suggests that guidance for teachers regarding optimal responses to mean and hurtful student behavior might improve the bystander culture, in turn reducing bullying.

Authors

• Gerald Reid, Boston University

• Chelsey Bowman, Boston University