Bullying Prevention Program: Possible Impact on Academic Performance

The research conducted sought to find the effect of the implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program on the academic performance of students in the third through eighth grade. The study examined the relationship between the implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program and the change in academic performance, as measured by the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment. The post-test scores of third through fifth grade students from one elementary school which had implemented the prevention program were compared with the post-test scores for the same grade levels at an elementary school that had not implemented a bullying prevention program. The same comparison was made between a middle school that had implemented the Olweus program and a middle school that had not implemented a prevention program. The surveys from the two schools that had implemented the Olweus program demonstrated that both of the schools had experienced a significant decrease in the intensity and frequency of reported bullying behavior at the conclusion of the first year of the program. The reduction was most significant in the elementary school. A one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted and the difference in adjusted means of the post assessment scores between the control and experimental groups was found to be significant. For the students that had not been involved in the bullying prevention program, the adjusted mean score was 215.64, while those involved in the prevention program had an adjusted mean score of 217.01