Bullying Data Initial Report and Trends Discussion

A bullying survey was given to students this past winter in an effort to collect baseline data and to identify trends in the data. The survey contained 38 questions that sought to identify the frequency of bullying, the degree of participation in bullying, the location of bullying, the types of bullying behavior and reporting of bullying incidences. 127 students, from grades 3-8 participated in the survey at the Folsom School as part of an anti-bullying program administered at the school and the data was collected and distributed by Ruth Walker Hamilton, from UVM. The Folsom school is a k-8, inclusive public school located on an island in Lake Champlain, Vermont.

The results of the survey were shared with the faculty during an after school meeting by a graduate assistant of Ruth Hamilton's from U.V.M.. The data was taken from her handouts and used for discussion with students. After discussing with students their survey response data, we discovered some interesting trends in each of the categories that were surveyed.

Incidence of Bullying Results

 

This data was given to the teachers in its current format. When we shared this data with the students, they clearly identified with the fact that bullying in the 5/6 seems to be the biggest problems. Students thought this might be related to the age and a teacher suggested this may be due to the more away from the k-4 part of the school and into the 5-8 part of the school.
When asked if they feared being bullied, the 3/4 seemed to fear more often than not and more than any other grade. In fact, 33% of 3/4 students regularly fear bullying. In contrast, 83% of 7/8 students did not or seldom feared being bullied.
A natural follow-up question to the amount of bullying behavior was the role in bullying. A positive response to this would indicate that a student takes responsibility to their bullying behavior. We were discouraged to learn that the no or once or twice was indicated blended together. When we looked at the grouped regular data, we discovered that the 5/6 students were the least likely to take responsibility for their bullying. This suggests that bullying is not concentrated into a small group of students and that it may be spread among the students. Alternatively, students may not realize that they are in fact bullying others but are sensitive to being bullied themselves.
This question was slightly more benign because it only asked if you would be willing to bully another student, provided you didn't like them. This data had some interesting and discouraging results. First, the number of students that would not bully decreased with age in the no category. This means that a progressively smaller number of students would resist the urge to bully.

 
This graph helps us understand whether students are potential helpers or henchpersons.
The goal of Q37 seemed to be identifying the relative amounts of possible helpers. In that capacity, these data indicate that many students already try to help and that a smaller number indicated that they did nothing but thought they should have done something. This group of students was largest in the 7/8.
This graph illustrates the 3 most common forms of bullying at our school: mean names, exclusion and lies. These types of behaviors are easily manifest on the playground, which was identified as the most common location of bullying at our school.
While students indicated that bullying happens at every location on the questionnaire, the responses clearly indicated that the playground was the number one location for bullying. This makes sense when considered with the most common forms of bullying: name calling, rumors and exclusion; because these behaviors are easily used on the playground when form groups.

Much to our surprise, the presence or absence of a teacher made very little difference to the students completing the survey. The types of bullying behavior, however, could be

Students appeared to generally tell someone about the bullying. For all groups of students, the majority reported to their parents, then to another adult and finally, to their classroom teachers. This suggests that there are strong family ties and communication and that the school may invest more efforts in helping parents report bullying events.
This graph may helps us understand why students are not reporting bullying to their teachers. For example, more than 40% of the 7/8 team feels their teachers have done little or very little to counteract bullying.