Outcome Measures to Assess the Effectiveness of Bullying-prevention Programs in the Schools

There are numerous innovative bullying and aggression-prevention programs being used in schools across the country and worldwide. Due to the infancy of applied research in this area, many of these programs lack appropriate data collection procedures, well-validated and community-responsive outcome measures, and procedures to ensure consistent program implementation (Leff, Power, Manz, Costigan, & Nabors, 2001). This chapter presents a review of the most commonly used sets of measures to identify aggressors and bullies and to determine the effectiveness of bullying and aggression prevention programs. The review will focus on the strengths and limitations of each set of measures. In addition, the chapter describes how our research team has collaborated with the adults who supervise students on the playground and in the lunchroom to develop and validate several innovative community-responsive questionnaires that can be used in conjunction with other methods to evaluate the effectiveness of bullying prevention and intervention efforts. The chapter concludes by discussing how to translate research to practice in the development outcome measures designed to evaluate the effectiveness of school-based bullying prevention programs. Prior research on peer bullying has focused primarily upon understanding the characteristics and comorbidities associated with physical forms of bullying (i.e., hitting, pushing, fighting). Much of this research has been with boys who exhibit aggression in a direct and physical manner towards their peers (e.g., Block, 1983). However, more recent research has found that children can express their aggression, and bully others, in multiple ways (e.g., Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Rys & Bear, 1997). For example, research has found that boys’ and girls’ overall aggression levels are actually somewhat similar, but that girls only occasionally display overtly aggressive behaviors (e.g., Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). Instead, girls are much more likely to use relational aggression, defined as “harming others through purposeful manipulation and damage of their peer relationships” (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995, p. 711). This type of aggression often takes the form of gossiping, leaving others out on purpose, or threatening to withdraw friendships.