Impact of a Comprehensive Bullying and Violence Prevention Program on Verified Incidents of Bullying Victimization and Perpetration Among Middle School Students

Introduction: Because bullying peaks during middle school and bullying is linked to lower academic achievement and higher psychosocial adjustment issues, both of which can lead to concurrent and future health issues, schools have been mandated to develop procedures for assessing, responding to, and mitigating bullying. This project evaluated the degree to which changes in the implementation of a comprehensive bullying and violence prevention program impacted rates of verified incidents of bullying with a state-wide intervention across 24 middle schools within one state in the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years. Bullying program implementation was quantified through annual completion of the Wisconsin Bullying Prevention Programs Assessment Tool in which activities are reported across 9 areas in areas such as professional development, data collection, curriculum implementation and communication with families.

Methods: During bi-annual, 20 school day, periods during project years, data pursuant to verified bullying incidents were collected. Schools were given guidance as to what constitutes a “verified” incident, following the CDC public health definition to ensure consistency across all schools. Regression analyses viewed how progression throughout the project (periods 1-4) was associated with changes in student rates of bullying victimization and perpetration and differences based on school assignment as experimental, who received technical assistance and training, (n=11) and control, wait-listed for the same assistance, (n=13) .

Results: Across the four time points of interest, bullying victimization rates declined significantly (p=.004) among experimental group schools, with a non-significant decline (p=.41) among control schools. Rates per 100 of students bullied in fall 2015, spring 2016, fall 2016 and spring 2017 periods were 2.5, 1.0, 1.2 and 0.6, respectively in experimental schools and 2.3, 1.3, 1.6, 1.4 in control schools. Analyses controlled for baseline bullying program level and baseline student-reported bullying victimization. Bullying perpetration rates declined, non-significantly, among both experimental (p=.15) and control (p=.73) schools.

Conclusions: These findings hold implications towards violence prevention and safety efforts within the school environment. Schools took steps to improve their comprehensive bullying prevention programs that did not require high levels of resources, financial or otherwise. The primary variable that was new to the schools as part of this research project was formal guidance in what constitutes a “comprehensive” approach and technical assistance in implementation making this method of addressing bullying and violence reduction accessible to schools outside of a grant-funded project.