Reducing adolescents' involvement with relational aggression: Evaluating the effectiveness of the Creating A Safe School (CASS) intervention

Antibullying Interventions in Schools: Assessing the Evidence Base

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review used established rating criteria to describe the level of evidence for interventions aimed at preventing or reducing bullying perpetration and victimization in schools, synthesized the evidence for students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, and reviewed the literature for available information to conduct an economic analysis of the interventions.

METHODS

Major databases, gray literature, and evidence-base registries were searched to identify studies published from 2008 through 2022. The authors rated antibullying intervention models as having high, moderate, or low evidence depending on the number and rigor of studies with positive findings.

RESULTS

Overall, 80 articles reporting on 71 original research studies describing a total of 48 antibullying interventions met the inclusion criteria for this review. Two schoolwide interventions received a high-evidence rating: the KiVa (Kiusaamista Vastaan) Antibullying Program and the Friendly Schools program. Multilevel interventions with components at the levels of school, classroom, and individual student most consistently showed strong evidence for reducing bullying behavior in elementary and middle school grades. Four interventions yielded positive effects in reducing bullying and victimization among diverse samples of students.

CONCLUSIONS

Antibullying interventions can reduce bullying in schools. Some interventions show effectiveness with students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds. The gains relative to per-student costs were in the range that is considered cost-effective. Most implementation costs are spent on staff training and support. Research on successful implementation of whole-school interventions and additional synthesis of evidence pertaining to program structures would further advance the antibullying evidence base.

Measuring violence perpetration: Stability of teachers' self-reports before and after an anti-violence training in Cote d'Ivoire

BACKGROUND

Epidemiological studies of interpersonal violence commonly use self-reported violence perpetration as an outcome measure, but few studies have investigated the stability of and influences on self-reports.

OBJECTIVE

To assess changes in teachers' self-reported use of physical violence against students before and after a one-day violence prevention training, and factors associated with changed reports in Cote d'Ivoire.

METHODS

Before and after the training, 157 teachers completed surveys containing 32 questions adapted from the ICAST-CI. Changes in physical violence usage were summarized over lifetime, past school term, and past-week timeframes, and the consistency in responses assessed via intraclass correlation coefficients (3,k), percent agreement, and kappa statistics. Factors associated with changed reports were assessed using robust multiple linear regression with 1,000 bootstrapped replications.

RESULTS

Although reports before and after the training should have remained constant, the proportion of teachers reporting 1+ act of violence dropped substantially (lifetime: 73% to 47%). Most teachers (73%) changed 1+ response. Kappa for individual items showed ranging disagreement (lifetime: 0.275-0.795). Variables significantly associated with greater numbers of changed reports included: greater mental health distress (lifetime: beta = 1.061, 95% CI = 0.229, 2.404), older age (past school term: beta = 0.067, 95% CI = 0.018, 0.113); and variables targeted during training, including increasing awareness of consequences of violence (past week: beta = 0.241, 95% CI = 0.046, 0.435) and decreasing acceptance of physical discipline practices in schools (past school term: beta= -0.169, 95% CI= -0.338, -0.045).

CONCLUSIONS

Interpreting self-reports of violence perpetration requires caution. Formal investigations into reliability and validity of self-reported violence perpetration and victimization are needed.

Testing for response shift in treatment evaluation of change in self-reported psychopathology amongst secondary psychiatric care outpatients

OBJECTIVES

If patients change their perspective due to treatment, this may alter the way they conceptualize, prioritize, or calibrate questionnaire items. These psychological changes, also called "response shifts," may pose a threat to the measurement of therapeutic change in patients. Therefore, it is important to test the occurrence of response shift in patients across their treatment.

METHODS

This study focused on self-reported psychological distress/psychopathology in a naturalistic sample of 206 psychiatric outpatients. Longitudinal measurement invariance tests were computed across treatment in order to detect response shifts.

RESULTS

Compared with before treatment, post-treatment psychopathology scores showed an increase in model fit and factor loading, suggesting that symptoms became more coherently interrelated within their psychopathology domains. Reconceptualization (depression/mood) and reprioritization (somatic and cognitive problems) response shift types were found in several items. We found no recalibration response shift.

CONCLUSION

This study provides further evidence that response shift can occur in adult psychiatric patients across their mental health treatment. Future research is needed to determine whether response shift implies an unwanted potential bias in treatment evaluation or a desired cognitive change intended by treatment.

Treatment integrity in school-wide programs: a review of the literature (1993-2012)

We assessed the reporting of treatment integrity in school-wide prevention programs in K-12 schools. This review was designed to determine (a) the extent to which treatment integrity was reported in school-wide prevention and intervention programs and how the reporting varied by research design, year, and journal; and (b) the procedures (e.g., method, frequency, informant) used to collect treatment integrity data. Results indicated that fewer than half of the studies in the review (n = 36, 45.6 %) measured and reported treatment integrity. Those studies reporting treatment integrity often used multiple methods and informants. Reporting treatment integrity in this body of literature has increased steadily over time.

Testing for Response Shift Bias in Evaluations of School Antibullying Programs

BACKGROUND

Involvement in bullying at school is detrimental to students' mental and physical health; however, school antibullying programs have not been found to be uniformly successful. Self-reported frequency of involvement in bullying victimization and perpetration, often used as outcome measures in intervention impact evaluation studies, may be subject to response shift, particularly in intervention conditions. Such differential shifts could lead to biased estimates of intervention effects.

OBJECTIVES

This study investigated the presence of reconceptualization, reprioritization, and recalibration response shift, resulting from intervention implementation.

METHOD

The study subjects were Grade 8 students (n = 3,382, 53% female) in the 35 schools participating in the Cyber Friendly Schools Project, a longitudinal group-randomized intervention trial. Response shift was assessed by comparing traditional and retrospective pretest measures of bullying involvement, as well as testing for measurement invariance over time in the Forms of Bullying Scale (FBS) using confirmatory factor analyses.

RESULTS

No evidence of response shift was found, indicating students' understandings of bullying behavior remained stable over time. These findings also demonstrate the applicability of the FBS in longitudinal studies involving adolescents.

CONCLUSION

While response shift was not present in our study, researchers conducting program evaluations in other contexts are advised to consider testing for this potential source of bias in their studies.

Impact of physical and relational peer victimization on depressive cognitions in children and adolescents

The purpose of this study is to find longitudinal evidence of the effect of targeted peer victimization (TPV) on depressive cognitions as a function of victimization type and gender. Prospective relations of physical and relational peer victimization to positive and negative self-cognitions were examined in a 1-year, 2-wave longitudinal study. Self-reports of cognitions and both peer nomination and self-report measures of peer victimization experiences were obtained from 478 predominantly Caucasian children and young adolescents (Grades 3-6 at the beginning of the study) evenly split between genders. As a result, (a) peer victimization predicted increases in negative cognitions and decreases in positive cognitions over time; (b) relational victimization was more consistently related to changes in depressive cognitions than was physical victimization; (c) the prospective relation between victimization and depressive cognitions was stronger for boys than for girls; and (d) when the overlap between relational and physical TPV was statistically controlled, girls experienced more relational TPV than did boys, and boys experienced more physical TPV than did girls. Peer victimization, particularly relational TPV, has a significant impact on children's depressive cognitions. This relation seems particularly true for boys. Implications for future research, clinical work with victimized youth at risk for depression, and school policy to help both victims and bullies are discussed.