Alex Harrop

Pupil and Staff Perceptions of Bullying in Secondary Schools: Comparing Behavioural Definitions and Their Perceived Seriousness.

Background: How bullying is understood by members of the school community is important because differences in definitions could result in an inconsistent approach and affect the success of intervention work. Research evidence suggests that pupils and teachers may have different interpretations of what constitutes bullying. This evidence has, however, been largely obtained from investigations in which the two groups have been questioned in different ways. This means that some of the differences obtained could be functions of methodology, rather than functions of differing perceptions. In addition, the perceptions of support staff have been largely neglected in the literature to date. Purpose: This study examines the perceptions of bullying of pupils held by pupils, teachers and school support staff in English secondary schools by the use of identical questionnaires for each group. Sample: A total of 1302 individuals participated in the research from four urban secondary schools. These four schools came from the same Local Education Authority in North West England. The sample consisted of 685 Year 8 pupils aged 12–13 years (341 males, 324 females, 20 unspecified), 415 Year 11 pupils aged 15–16 years (212 males, 187 females, 16 unspecified), 144 teachers (59 males, 81 females, 4 unspecified) and 58 support staff (14 males, 37 females, 7 unspecified). Design and methods: The study utilised a survey design whereby written responses to scenario-based questionnaires were scored. The scenarios described a range of direct bullying, indirect bullying and ambiguous behaviours. Respondents were asked whether they thought the behaviour described was bullying and how serious it was if experienced by a male or a female pupil. Questionnaires were completed by pupils during supervised class time. Staff questionnaires were distributed to staff members individually and completed independently. Results: Indirect bullying behaviours were less likely to be defined as bullying and were regarded as less serious than direct bullying behaviours. Scenarios with a female victim were rated more seriously than those with a male victim, and female respondents rated the behaviours more seriously than males. Teachers and support staff considered a wider range of scenarios to constitute bullying compared to pupils and also rated these to be more serious. Differences between schools indicated that perceptions could be affected by school factors. Conclusions: The differences in perceptions of bullying between pupils and staff indicate that teachers need to invest more time in talking with pupils about the nature of bullying. Indirect behaviours in particular need more attention to ensure they are included in definitions of bullying, and taken seriously. Further research is needed to investigate how school factors may influence perceptions of bullying.

Natural rates of approval and disapproval in British infant, junior and secondary classrooms.

BACKGROUND Investigations in the 1970s showed, amongst other findings, teachers giving more disapproval than approval to their pupils. In the late 1980s, different investigators, whilst concurring with other findings, found approval rates to be higher than disapproval at all school levels, an important finding in view of the number of investigations which have shown the positive value to pupils of contingent verbal approval and the negative or ineffective value of disapproval. AIMS We aimed to examine teacher approval and disapproval a further ten years later and unlike previous investigations, which used classroom observers, to utilise a permanent method of recording. The permanent recording was partly to facilitate precision of recording and partly to enable a more complex analysis of data than had previously been achieved. SAMPLES Participants were 10 infant school teachers, 10 junior school teachers and 10 secondary school teachers. METHODS The teachers taught their classes whilst wearing radio microphones. The tape recordings of the lessons were systematically observed using eight defined categories of behaviour. Category definitions were initially established by two independent observers who attained a level of above 80% agreement. Analyses of the data were both within group and between groups. RESULTS Findings were generally in line with those of the investigations of the 1980s. Aspects not previously investigated included findings that approval was given predominantly to pupils working individually rather than in groups, that redirection (a teacher response following disapproval which describes an approved behaviour) was markedly lower in secondary schools than in junior and infant schools, whilst redirection occurred at about the same rate in junior and infant schools. CONCLUSIONS That the results for approval and disapproval rates agree with those of the 1980s in which differing methodologies were used in different school systems is encouraging evidence that teachers are using appropriate verbal responses to their pupils. Some of the more detailed results of the investigation do, however, indicate areas for concern.

The behavioural approach in schools: a time for caution revisited

This paper takes as its starting point an examination of the current status of some of the concerns that were raised in the mid‐1980s about methodological problems faced by educational researchers using the behavioural approach in schools. These concerns included the measurement of agreement between observers, the interpretation of raw data extracted, the potential influences of observers and the inherent properties of research designs. Subsequently, some more wide‐ranging concerns are considered, in particular the kinds of behaviour selected for treatment, the lack of analysis of what is involved in teachers’ positive responses to pupils’ behaviour and the relatively uninvestigated effects of teachers’ negative responses. The conclusions are presented as a series of points that are listed, as far as possible, in the order in which they confront the investigator.

Gender Matters in Higher Education.

Much of the research in higher education has treated student bodies as homogeneous groups with a consequent neglect of any consideration of gender differences. To test the validity of such research a questionnaire was administered to 255 psychology students. The results showed some important differences in responses between the genders. In particular, the female students reported attaching more importance than males to pre‐course aims, rated various learning activities as more valuable and interesting than males and reported more improvement in nine of the 12 skills surveyed than the males. The males rated experiencing less difficulty for various aspects of the course than anticipated than did the females for 11 of 12 potential difficulties listed. As a consequence, it is suggested that researchers ought to be wary of conducting research into various aspects of higher education without considering potential gender differences.

Teacher Talk Directed to Boys and Girls and Its Relationship to Their Behaviour.

There have been a number of investigations into the extent to which teachers in the primary school interact within their classrooms with boys and girls and the results of these investigations have differed considerably, some showing boys receiving more interaction than girls and others showing no differences. The aim of this investigation was to try and clarify matters by examining specific categories of teacher verbal behaviour and by including a measure of the quantity and pattern of the off‐task behaviour of the boys and girls. Data were collected from 18 teachers and their pupils in junior school classrooms. The results showed that the boys received more overall verbal communication than the girls in those categories concerned with approbation and disapprobation and that the boys were also less on‐task overall than the girls. There were also marked differences between the boys and the girls in their patterns of off‐task behaviour.

Comparison of Teacher Talk Directed to Boys and Girls and Its Relationship to Their Behaviour in Secondary and Primary Schools.

There have been a number of earlier investigations, using differing methodologies, into the extent to which teachers in the secondary school interact with boys and girls and the results have suggested an imbalance in the teachers’ verbal behaviour towards the genders that is quite similar to the imbalance found in teachers’ behaviour in the primary school. The main aim of this study was to devise an investigation using the same methodology as that used in a recent primary school investigation in order to be able to make a fair comparison between the two levels. The results showed considerable differences in the teachers’ verbal behaviour towards the genders in the secondary school from that of teachers in the primary school. Where the primary school data showed teachers interacting more with the boys than the girls and the boys being less on‐task than the girls, the secondary school data showed no such differences.

Momentary Time Sampling and Partial Interval Recording: A Rejoinder to Adams (1991)

Momentary time sampling (MTS) is an unbiased method of estimating the duration of time for which a behaviour occurs, unlike partial interval recording (PIR) which introduces bias. This lack of bias does not, however, permit the researcher to make the further assumption that MTS allows multiple behaviours to be monitored accurately or in a way that is sensitive to behaviour change. Further considerations of the use of MTS and PIR are discussed.

The effect of increasing written approval on Italian students’ academic performance in higher education

ABSTRACT Increasing teacher verbal approval has been shown to produce both increased pupil “on-task” behaviour and academic achievement. The present study aimed to address gaps in current knowledge about the effect of different kinds of teacher approval, other than verbal approval, on students’ performance. An exploratory study, followed by an experimental study, was conducted with Italian undergraduate psychology students in order to investigate the effect of written approval on their academic performance. The results indicate that, whilst there is some suggestion that students appreciated receiving increased written approval comments on their work, the receipt of such comments was accompanied by poorer academic performance than that of a control group. Possible explanations are presented.

The Reported Rewards of Part-Time Study

A questionnaire was administered to part and full-time students of psychology at Liverpool John Moores University in order to determine the extent to which the part-time students appreciated the course. The results showed the part-time students reported themselves as having gained more from the programme than the full-time students, in terms of support and relationship with tutors, satisfaction with teaching and interest in various aspects of the programme. In terms of perceived changes in skill levels, however, there were no large differences between the two groups.