SEPT 27 — More than 15 years ago, three scholars and researchers who were members of the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, HELP University College (at it then was) undertook a study to assess the extent of bully-victim problems among secondary school children in the Federal Capital of Kuala Lumpur and to evaluate the effectiveness of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme (OBPP) in some selected schools.
OBPP was formulated and created by Dan Olweus, a Swedish-Norwegian psychologist. He was a research professor of psychology at the University of Bergen, Norway and widely recognised as a pioneer of research on bullying.
OBPP is a comprehensive approach that includes schoolwide, classroom, individual, and community components, focusing on long-term change that creates a safe and positive school climate.
It is designed and evaluated for use in elementary, middle, junior high and high schools. The goals are to reduce and prevent bullying problems among school children and to improve peer relations at school.
OBPP has been found to reduce bullying among children, improve the social climate of classrooms, and reduce related antisocial behaviours, such as vandalism and truancy.
It has been implemented in more than a dozen countries around the world, and in thousands of schools in the United States.
The study of the three scholars – Noran Fauziah Yaakub, Fatimah Haron, Goh Chee Leong – was funded by Unicef, the United Nations agency for children.
A total of 3,816 from six secondary schools (three experimental and three control schools) in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur participated in the study.
The schools included one all girls’ school, one all boys’ school, and one co-educational school for both the experimental and control schools.
The study used an experimental pre-test/post-test comparison including a control group. The first part of the study looked at school level intervention, while the second part only looked at the Form 2 classes where additional intervention programmes were carried out.
A bullying survey comprising 24 items was used, identifying three dimensions of bullying – that is, physical, verbal and relational – and five areas of being victims of bullying – that is, physical, verbal, relational, signal and extortion.
In the experimental schools, a school-based anti-bullying programme was implemented while the control schools did not receive any programme at all.
The following steps were taken in the study:
(a) Bullying survey for all students in the participating schools (experimental and control);
(b) Formation of anti-bully committees in the experimental schools;
(c) A 3-day training for these anti-bully committees by the research team;
(d) Another training session was given for those who could not attend the earlier training;
(e) Data entry and analysis of survey data;
(f) Presentation of survey results to the respective schools.
(g) Launching of the anti-bullying programme in each of the experimental schools.
(h) Programme with parents in the experimental schools.
(i) Classroom intervention for Form 2 students in the experimental schools.
(j) Additional workshop for school counselors in the experimental schools.
(k) Follow-up meeting in the experimental schools; and
(l) Post survey carried out in both the experimental and control schools.
The study made the following findings:
Overall bullying
The three types of bullying identified in the study (physical, verbal and relational) showed an upward trend in the experimental schools as a whole. However, when the analysis was carried out separately for each type of school, a different picture emerged.
In the all girls’ experimental school, there were significant downward trends for the three types of bullying after one year.
However, at the co-educational school and in the all boys’ experimental school, all three types of bullying showed an upward trend.
For the control schools, all three types of bullying showed an upward trend in the all girls’ control school and the all boys’ control school.
However, in the co-educational control school, all three types of bullying were on the downward trend.
Bullying among Form Two students
Further analysis focusing on the Form Two students who were given additional activities at the classroom level, the findings again confirmed all three types of bullying to be on the decrease at the all girls’ experimental school. (Emphases added) It was similar at the all boys’ experimental school.
The analysis on the Form Two students showed all three types of bullying to be on the upward trend in all the control schools.
Thus, when comparing the results on Form Two students in the control schools with those in the experimental schools, the findings suggested that, to a certain extent, the programme at the classroom level did produce some positive effects in terms of reducing bullying behaviour.
Overall victims of bullying
The results for all students at each of the experimental schools showed all types of being victims of bullying (physical, verbal, relational, signal, and extortion) to be on the downward trend in the all girls’ school. (Emphases added)
However, the opposite picture could be seen in the co-educational school where all five types of victimisation were significantly higher at the post-test stage. The situation at the all boys’ school was somewhat mixed.
Victims of bullying among Form Two students
Among the Form Two students, the findings were mixed. In the all girls’ experimental school, the decrease in being victims of bullying was in three areas (physical, verbal and extortion).
The decrease in being victims of bullying in the all boys’ experimental school was also in three areas – relational, signal and verbal. As for the co-educational experimental school, the decrease was only in one area, namely, extortion.
In the control schools, the results showed an upward trend in all five types of being victims of bullying in the all girls’ school, while in the all boys’ school, the upward trend was in two types of being victims – that is, relational and signal.
In the co-educational school, the upward trend in being victims of bullying was in three areas – that is, physical, signal, and extortion.
The findings were published in 2010. (See Noran Fauziah Yaakub et al, “Examining the efficacy of the Olweus prevention programme in reducing bullying: the Malaysian experience”, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 595–59).
The findings were further discussed by the researchers as follows:
The significant decrease in bullying in the all girls’ experimental school could be justified from the different types of activities that were carried out in the school.
The school had the most number of activities to create awareness among students, teachers, and school support staff about the different types of bullying and how to address the bullying problem in school.
The school also named their anti-bully intervention programme “Love Your Friends” instead of just calling it an anti-bully intervention programme as in the other two experimental schools.
A large majority of the teachers from the all girls’ experimental school knew about the anti-bully policy that the school had come up with.
With the exception of the history, geography, and living skills teachers, the other teachers spoke and discussed bullying in class, with the language teachers taking the lead.
Seventy-five per cent of the class teachers had put up their class anti-bully policy on the classroom notice board.
The two counsellors in this school spoke about bullying in classes when they were doing relief duties.
The school also had a series of other programmes with their students to create awareness of the effects of bullying on victims and bullies.
In the all girls’ experimental school, five anti-bully posters given by the researchers were put up outside the counsellor’s office throughout the year.
In comparison, the co-educational school had two posters put up on the wall along the staircase leading to the counsellor’s office office but all these posters were taken down after a few weeks.
In the all boys’ school, the posters were not displayed anywhere.
The all girls’ school also held a one-day seminar on parenting for parents in conjunction with the Parent-Teachers Association’s (PTA’s) annual general meeting.
Two of the researchers were asked to address the parents, and one of the topics was on the results of the school survey on bullying.
Comparatively, there were fewer teachers from the co-educational school who spoke about bullying with their students even though they were encouraged to do so.
This could partly explain why bullying was still high in this school at the end of the anti-bully intervention programme.
The counsellor from this school revealed that there were teachers in the school who were involved in name-calling of their students.
Interviews with teachers and counsellors from the all boys’ school revealed that physical bullying had a long tradition in the school inherited since the colonial days.
Physical bullying was carried out by senior students outside the knowledge of teachers. Students who were caught did not view actions such as kicking, hitting or slapping others as bullying. Instead, these behaviours were seen as a test of endurance on the part of the victims.
Sounds familiar? If it does, then as the saying goes: familiarity breeds contempt. That’s the big problem.
In their concluding remarks, the researchers wrote as follows:
The results showed some indication of the effectiveness of the anti-bully intervention programme in the all girls’ school, followed by the all boys’ schools but not in the co-educational school.
Classroom intervention showed more positive results.
A further analysis on the control schools at both school and classroom levels did not show a decrease in either bullying behaviour or being victims of bullying.
One wonders if anti-bullying intervention programmes were implemented in our schools. Zara Qairina’s death was a tragedy waiting to happen when no such programmes were implemented.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
