Preventing Bullying through Online Student Reporting
Marvi Villamizar
Maren McCombs
Betty Y. Ashbaker
Brigham Young University
Preventing Bullying Through Online Student Reporting
There is a growing body of literature regarding the urgent need to address the critical issue of school violence and rightly so, considering the continuance of tragic occurrences in schools. Yet efforts to decrease incidents have left many parents fearing for their child’s safety, while educators face the daily challenge of helping students learn in a secure and harassment-free environment. Even the most effective administrators, parents, and teachers cannot address negative school incidents if they do not know about them, and many students are reluctant to report, especially those in middle school and high school. While limited resources in personnel or funds may create difficulties in preventing school violence, the lack of student reporting is often the most persistent limitation to even the best-laid programs.
Within suggested improvements to current programs, the need for increased reporting should be a primary consideration. While school boards are required to implement an anti-bullying/harassment program, “the perennial challenge of attempting to increase the levels of pupils’ reporting of bullying to teachers and parents remains a challenge” (O’Moore and Minton, 2005). Schools are seeing increased reporting as an essential ingredient to success in their existing programs.
Literature Review: Students Reporting School Violence
How serious is the problem? Pioneering researcher Dan Olweus documented in Norway and Sweden that 60 percent of boys identified as bullies in middle school, later had at least one criminal conviction by age 24 (Olweus, 1993). Preventing school violence will not be successful until the responsibility for reporting is on the shoulders of the students who really know what is happening (Stone & Isaacs, 2002). Students are the eyes and ears of the school. They see the bullying that happens in the hallways and bathrooms where teachers are not supervising. In so many cases, some of the students have known ahead of time that acts of school violence were going to occur, yet they did not tell any adults. One example that shows the devastating affects of students not reporting potential school violence was seen in the horrific incident at Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi where a high school student told his friends that he was going to kill his mother. Even though Luke Woodham called his friends the next day to confirm that he had killed his mother and to tell them his plans for shooting fellow students, his friends still chose not to report to any school or parental authorities. Terrible stories such as this are springing up across the nation and internationally, and the consequences are serious when students choose not to report. Increased student reporting will occur when students take responsibility for keeping their school safe and when they trust school authorities enough to report. This trust includes belief that serious action will be taken when the report is registered.
Trust between Students and Administrators
A strong foundation of trust between students and administrators can make a significant difference in the number of student reports (Stone & Isaacs, 2002). A study conducted with Radford University explored the conditions under which students are most likely to report negative peer experiences. Two factors were whether or not the student believed his or her claim would actually be dealt with and the perceived tolerance toward bullying. A large proportion of students believe that school authorities do little to intervene when bullying occurs. Moreover, in situations where they do report, victims may fear retaliation, particularly if they believe that authorities will be ineffective in responding to their problem (Unnever & Cornell, 2004). Students need to be confident that administrators care enough about these two factors before they will take the risk of reporting. Administrators can build trust with their students by responding effectively to the reports about school violence. They can do this by “building a system that includes respecting and carefully handling students’ confidences” (Stone & Isaacs, 2002). Principals, guidance counselors, and school officers cannot police every incident happening at every moment, and victims will not report unless they are sure their problem will be handled by administration and there will not be an increase in abuse by the bully.
Students who know how and where to get effective help will be more likely to confide in a school system that invites them to be proactive. Many schools keep returning to the idea that higher security is the answer to bullying problems. Administrators and parents cannot expect that schools will be safer because of the installation of numerous cameras or metal detectors in school hallways and parking lots or playgrounds. While these tools give a sense of safety, real safety “comes from human relations” (Kohn, 2004). The terrible pain inflicted on a student who is abused and ignored can wear on a victim to the point where the child feels his or her problem would not make a worthwhile complaint. However, if they have a system allowing positive and effective two-way communication with a culture of trust, then reporting can be increased and bullying lessened.
Anonymity & Confidentiality
Students will not report unless they feel that the information being disclosed to school officers is secure. Anonymous reporting is what allows students to report without feeling endangered socially by disclosure of bullying incidents. The ultimate objective of anonymous reporting is to prevent acts of school violence through student reports and to decrease the amount of retaliation inflicted on those who report. In addition, if anonymous reporting makes students more willing to report, then administrators can be more aware of bullying issues in their school so they can respond in an appropriate and timely manner.
Traditional Methods of Reporting
Traditional methods of reporting are written or verbal reports of an incident made by a student to the school administrators, counselors, or teachers. Students are often limited in their options of reporting incidents of school violence. Since reporting involves personal interaction and a lack of anonymity, many students choose not to report, leaving the incident unresolved. The prevalence of traditional reporting methods in schools today is partly due to few research groups have forged ahead in the area of “program effectiveness” and finding a better solution to get students to report more frequently (Juvonen & Graham, 2004).
One example of an overused and ineffective policy is zero tolerance. Attempting to address the problems of weapons in the schools, the U.S. federal government passed the Gun-Free schools Act in 1994, mandating a one-year expulsion for possession of a firearm or weapon. This policy appeals to many schools because they want to be seen as taking strong measures against violence. Administrators feel that if their school punishes infractions with suspension or worse, then students will be too afraid to do anything wrong. In practice, zero tolerance policies have been applied to nonviolent student misbehavior (Brooks, Schiraldi, & Ziendenberg, 2000; Gottfredson, Gottfredson, & Czeh, 2000; Skiba, 2000) and has grown beyond its legal intent of preventing severe violence into a disciplinary strategy for a wide range of behaviors (Skiba, 2000). Under these conditions, students actually feel less safe and are less likely to work with administrators by reporting school violence. Schools continue to use less than optimal programs even with bullying statistics on the rise because they are rarely presented with an alternative system for reporting and handling incidents. These traditional reporting methods are often part of an entire school’s bullying prevention and intervention program.
Other aspects of anti-bullying programs are also in need of further research. These include use of metal detectors, hiring school police officers, zero tolerance, and weapons hotlines (Johnson & Johnson 1995). While these methods have important elements for prevention, they generally fail to offer intervention and these efforts often prove unsuccessful. Baldry (2004) explored direct and indirect bullying among adolescent (ages 11 to 15) Italian youngsters and found that of all students reporting directly bullying others also did it in an indirect way. Furthermore, there are potentially numerous negative outcomes of poorly managed conflicts including lower achievement and detrimental effects on individual students such as stress and challenges to self-esteem and self-efficacy (Johnson & Johnson, 1996) and another problem with bullying is those who witness bullying behaviors will typically not speak up if they believe the report will be ignored or poorly managed.
Non-traditional Methods of Reporting
Studies are exploring alternative forms of reporting acts of bullying. In the United Kingdom, a national phone hotline has been set up for children and teens to access help at any time (childline.org.uk). In addition, some researchers are exploring the use of text-messaging for students to quickly and effectively report bullying (bullytext.com). A company known as School Span is funding a program where administrators will be alerted immediately through emails from anonymous tippers (www.schoolspan.com). A Maryland school district offered an online bullying and harassment survey and found that 74% of students in grades 4-10 completed the survey (Grasmick, 2006), clearly showing a concern for the violence in their school. In this technologically savvy generation, an online approach may be the best way to reach students about school violence issues. The benefit of an online system is the 24-hour availability and for the program to be truly successful, it must be continuous—always there for the community to use.
These new methods share the common factors of anonymity, availability (24/7), and use of technology. They have potential to be effective; however, they lack certain features to make them truly accessible and appealing for students and administrators to use in a local, school setting. First, lack of funds, time, and personnel could prove to be difficult for a phone hotline. Further, the use of this type of system on a local scale might not allow the student to feel anonymous.
A program Bully Text has the potential to be inefficient, especially if one principal or counselor is receiving all of the texts. Research on the use of technology is new in the areas of bullying and harassment reporting, although some literature is now available regarding cyber-bullying (see NBC Today Show with Hart, Nelson, & Robinson.) The lack of research on the use of reporting through advanced technology suggests a need.
The Need for Further Research and a New Way of Reporting
Even though non-traditional methods have not been tried and tested, research has been conducted regarding what elements make a successful prevention/intervention program. In a study conducted internationally, Carney and Merrell’s research suggested that in order to make a substantive difference, long-term commitment to promotion of a positive environment, there must be data-based accountability measures which gauge the effectiveness of intervention and suggest modifications as they are needed” (Carney & Merrell, 2001). Traditional methods and new non-traditional methods typically lack the measurements of effectiveness.
Successful programs, then, are those which combine parent, student, and administrative awareness and evaluation. With everyone involved in a data-based system, an anti-bullying environment will be created where all can feel confident and comfortable reporting incidents. This research project used SchoolTipline.com to explore a non-traditional reporting method that includes many of the features laid out by Carney & Merrell (2001). Students can access this system online 24 hours a day. Their report goes immediately and directly to school authorities. This provides a method for administrators and students to communicate and give each other “continuous feedback” about the bullying conditions in their school. SchoolTipline can be easily implemented into schools and, with the proper advertising, all students may be aware of the program and have the option of reporting. If students are encouraged to be the eyes and ears of their school, then a “positive environment” of anti-bullying will be more prevalent.
Method
Our original pilot study began in 2006 at a local suburban middle school of 7th and 8th grade students. The school population of 900 reported over half (57%) of the students as being economically disadvantaged. The purpose of this study was to collect information from middle school students regarding their willingness to use an online incident reporting system called SchoolTipline. Researchers hypothesized that students in the focus group would prefer using an online system rather than traditional methods of reporting. This online system allows students, teachers, and parents to report incidents of school violence, such as bullying and harassment, with the option of anonymity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Researchers conducted a focus group with 21 students in 7th and 8th grade at the pilot school using 3 questionnaires.
Participants
Participation in the research was voluntary and followed institutional review board procedures for parental consent and student assent. The focus group was drawn from a suburban middle public school with a population of 900 students. For this study, 21 seventh and eighth grade students were randomly selected. from a complete list of the school’s student body. The focus group sample was representative of the school population.
School demographics for the study group included, 11 (52%) were Caucasian, six (29%) were Hispanic, one reported him/herself as Asian/Pacific Islander, and three or 14% reported the “Other” category. Four of the participants were in the 7th grade and seventeen were in the 8th grade. Twelve participants were male and nine were female.
Materials
Participants completed out three questionnaires. The first was an Introductory Pre-Questionnaire consisting of six questions. These questions related to demographics and general opinions towards the current level of safety in their school. The second was a Usability Questionnaire that consisted of seven questions dealing with how participants prefer to report and their ability to access an online system. The third was a Post Questionnaire consisting of ten questions. Participants were asked for feedback about the website and about whether or not they would use the system to report and whether or not their fellow students would use the system to report.
Procedures
Twenty-one students were selected and divided into three groups of seven students in each group. Researchers delivered parental and student consent forms to participant and were asked to return signed consent forms the following week on the day of the focus group. Researchers then met with seven students at a time during a homeroom period at the school’s computer lab. Before viewing the SchoolTipline website, participants were given five minutes to complete the Pre-Questionnaire, which had demographic questions. Then participants were given information regarding the purpose of the study and procedures for the study.
Participants were given about ten minutes to complete the Usability Questionnaire dealing with participants’ reporting preferences and their ability to access an online system. Once completed, researchers guided participants through the SchoolTipline website for approximately seven to ten minutes, explaining its purpose and how to submit an online report. Participants were given five minutes to browse the website on their own. After students had the chance to become more familiar with SchoolTipline, researchers conducted a short, open discussion in which participants gave researchers suggestions about how to improve the design of website. Finally, participants took another ten minutes to complete the Post Questionnaire regarding feedback about the website, specifically their willingness to use the website. Following the completion of all 3 questionnaires, participants were offered a food incentive for agreeing to be part of the study.
Upon completion of the focus group, the data were analyzed by having an independent party create clusters to organize the open-ended participant responses into common groups. The responses were calculated into percentages.
Results
The results from the pre-questionnaire indicated that seventeen (81%) of the students reported they would feel more comfortable using an anonymous website to report a bullying incident. One student said, “I would feel more comfortable using an anonymous website to report bullying, because it is safer for the person who is reporting.” Another student said, “It would help us be in peace.” Twenty (95%) of the students reported that they would use this system if an incident happened to them. Moreover, they reported that they thought their friends or classmates would use it to report. One student said, “I would use this website because it would really help with some of the problems here at our school.”
In the usability questionnaire, students were asked what would keep them from reporting an incident such as bullying. Results indicated that five (24%) of students said that fear of having to face the bully was one main reason. Likewise, six (33%) said that peer pressure was a reason that would keep them from reporting. Researchers wanted to learn from the student’s responses if they would feel more comfortable using an anonymous website before looking at the website, as opposed to after looking at the SchoolTipline website. At the beginning of the focus group, when students had not browsed through the online reporting system, fifteen (71%) said they would feel comfortable using any anonymous website. However, after giving students the opportunity to see for themselves the layout of the website and reporting procedures, twenty students (95%) reported that they feel more comfortable using an anonymous website.
Discussion
Even though SchoolTipline is still in its beginning stages, administrators and parents in this school community have been able to see how this reporting system has already benefited students were bullied during this past school year. One administrator from this school said the following about this reporting system, "Students and parents want a safe learning environment in their school. SchoolTipline provides a layer of intervention and prevention that helps to promote a positive and safe learning environment for our school community.”
Ancillary to this research, the SchoolTipline system has alerted administrators and prevented fights through received reports from parents and students. For example, one parent used the system to report because her daughter was harassed during fifth-period class by two students. The concerned parent was tired of her daughter coming home upset because of her peers’ teasing, name-calling, rude remarks, and bullying, and just wanted her daughter to enjoy her experience in this class. Because this parent knew about the system, she was able to deal with the problem effectively and was contacted by the administrator and they later found a solution to the problem her daughter had been experiencing.
In spite of all the news articles and television coverage of school shootings, bullying, and other school crises, there are important things to note. First, most students feel safe at their school. Second, they would report bullying when they see it if they believe the system will work to stop the bully. Third, consistent with the research, the students said they would report school problems if they know how and where to report and they can remain anonymous.
References
Baldry, A. C. (2004). ‘The Impact of Direct and Indirect Bullying on the Mental and Physical Health of Italian Youngsters.’
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Brooks, K., Schiraldi, V., & Ziedenberg, J. (2000). School house hype: Two years later. Washington DC: Justice Policy
Institute/Children’s Law Center.
Carney, A.G. & K. W. Merrell (2001). ‘Bullying in Schools: Perspectives on Understanding and Preventing an International
Problem.’ School Psychology International 22(3): 364-382.
Grasmick, Nancy S. “Maryland: Confronting Classroom Bullies: Data collection is the first step in a statewide antibullying
campaign.” Leadership Insider. Accessed August 2006
http://www.nsba.org/site/docs/39100/39055.pdf
Gottfredson, G. D., Gottfredson, D. C., & Czeh, E. R. (2000). National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools. Elliott
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Johnson, D. W. & Johnson, R. T. (1996). Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs in Elementary and Secondary
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Juvonen, J., Graham, S., & Schuster, M.A. (2003). Bullying Among Young Adolescents: The Strong, the Weak, and the
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Kohn, A. (2004). Safety from the Inside Out: Rethinking Traditional Approaches. Educational Horizons 83(1): 33-41.
NBC Today Show. Interview with Katie Couric, Nelson, D. A., Robinson, C. C., & Hart, C. H.
Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do. Cambridge: Blackwell.
O’Moore, A.M. & S. J. Minton (2005). ‘Evaluation of the Effectiveness of an Anti-Bullying Program in Primary Schools.’
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Skiba, R. (2000). Zero tolerance, zero evidence: An analysis of school disciplinary practice. Bloomington: Indiana Education
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Stone, C. & M. L. Isaacs (2002). ‘Involving Students in Violence Prevention: Anonymous Reporting and the Need to Promote
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Websites
http://schooltipline.com/
SchoolTipline is the leading the way in providing schools and students the communication tools they need to be safe. These revolutionary solutions aid schools in the prevention and intervention of bullying, violence, drugs, security alerts, and other safety issues.
http://www.childline.org.uk/
ChildLine is the free helpline for children and young people in the UK. Children and young people can call 0800 1111 to talk about any problem.
http://www.bullytext.com/
BullyText is a simple, smart and easy to access service to assist in combating bullies across many organizations. Individuals can report incidents of bullying via a discreet text message or through this secure website. |
