The Bullying Literature Project: An Evaluation of a Class-Wide Bullying Intervention Program

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS The Bullying Literature Project: An Evaluation of a Class-wide Bullying Intervention Program by Lauren Kelley Couch Master of Arts, Graduate Program in Education University of California, Riverside, June 2015 Dr. Cixin Wang, Chairperson As the problem of bullying on school campuses gains more attention among educators nationwide, the need for effective bullying prevention programs increases. Existing bullying interventions have either had mixed results in terms of effectiveness or have been highly resource intensive and challenging to implement. This study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of The Bullying Literature Project (BLP), a brief class-wide bullying intervention designed to integrate into the existing curriculum and provide educators a cost-effective way to target bullying on campus. The BLP was implemented for five weeks in four elementary school classrooms; two fourth grade classrooms served as a waitlist control. Students completed a pre-test and post-test examining bullying behavior, victimization, bystander defending behavior, victim coping behavior, and attitudes related to bullying. Teachers completed a pre-test and post-test in which they reported on the bullying behavior, victimization, and pro-social behavior of their students. After controlling for gender and grade level, the results of a repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant treatment effects for teacher report of students’ pro-social behavior. A significant treatment effect was also found for student self-reported pro-bullying attitudes. Students in the control classrooms reported an increase in pro-bullying attitudes, while students in the treatment classroom did not show a change. However, no differences were seen between the treatment and control classrooms for student- or teacher- reported bullying or victimization. Additionally, no treatment effects were seen for bystander defending or victim coping behavior. Implications for practice for school psychologists and directions for future research are discussed