Examining the Effect of a Program Developed to Address Bullying in Primary Schools

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study is to evaluate effectiveness of a bullying prevention program, developed using an integrated approach, in the short-term and long-term, in primary schools.
METHODS: This study was made using quasi-experimental control group pretest-posttest design; one of the experimental research methods.; one of the experimental research methods. The study comprised 113 students receiving 6th grade education at 2 randomly selected schools in the counties of Konak and Karabağlar, in Izmir, Turkey. The data were gathered using the Demographic Data Questionnaire and The Peer Bully Adolescent Form. In the experimental group, the students attended a bullying prevention program and their parents and teachers attended seminars for 5 weeks. The data were collected before the training, 2 weeks after the training, at the 6th month, and at 1 year after the training. In the analysis of the data, ANOVA was used in repetitive measurements and t-tests were used in dependent and independent groups with Bonferroni correction.
RESULTS: A statistically significant difference was found among the control and experimental group victim subdimension point averages in the group (F = 68.28,p = 0.001), time (F = 7.39,p = 0.001), and group-time (F = 14.04,p = 0.001). A statistically significant difference was found between the control and experimental group bully subdimension point averages in the group (F = 7.63,p = 0.007) and time (F = 20.21, p = 0.001). No significant difference was determined in the group and time (F = 1.10, p = 0.349) interaction.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: It was found that the bullying prevention program based on the Social Cognitive Theory is effective after the training in decreasing the rate of students that are bullies or are victims of bullying, and this effect continues in victims in the 6th month and 1st year; however, it becomes nonsignificant in the bullies in the 1st year.