Effects of Bullying on Student Attendance - Dissertation Example

Methodology The following methodology is designed to determine whether there is a relationship between bullying and school attendance at the middle school level. Fifty to one hundred children in grades four to six will be the subjects of this process. The methodology is fourfold and will incorporate the following: (1) interviews with the students; (2) interviews with the students’ teachers; (3) interviews with the students’ parents; and (4) students’ attendance records, including late arrivals, absences and leaving early. Written permission from each student’s parent or guardian is required prior to the student participating in the study. The parents will be provided with the following background information: “Bullying is a serious problem in our schools that requires more study and attention. The incidence of bullying has been linked to poor school attendance. The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is indeed an association between bullying and poor attendance at school. In order to conduct this study, we are asking for permission to interview your student to determine whether he or she has issues with bullying. Fifty to one hundred students in grades four to six will be interviewed. If our study shows a relationship between bullying and attendance, we hope that more resources will be allocated towards working to resolve the problem of bullying in the schools.” Interview questions with the students will not involve asking them directly if they believe they are bullied. Rather, the interviewee will ask specific questions regarding whether the student has had certain feelings and experiences. Many times the student does not realize that he or she is a victim of bullying, especially if it is a combination of seemingly minor incidents and it is non-physical. The questions will be asked in a conversational way, so the children do not feel threatened by the procedure. Through a supportive conversation, the following information would be asked of them: 1. How much do you look forward to going to school each day? 2. Have you experienced another child do any of the following to you: pushing, shoving, punching, or tripping you; shouting at you; mimicking you; calling you names; threatening you; following you; teasing you about your clothes, lunch or other; taking away or destroying personal property; abusive notes to or about you; forcing you to do nasty things? How often does that happen? How many children do this to you? What do you do when this happens? Where do you feel it inside your body? 3. What do you do at recess? 4. What is your favourite thing to do at recess? 5. Who do you play with at school? 6. Who do you try not to play with at school? Why? 7. If you were playing a ball game and someone came and took the ball away, what would you do? 8. Do you have a best friend? 9. What is the best thing that happened to you last week? 10. What is the worst thing that happened to you last week? 11. If you could change one thing at school what would it be? 12. Are you afraid of any of the children at school? 13. Does anyone make you feel unsafe? 14. Do any other children exclude you from games? From these questions, the child is rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with a score of 1 representing a child that has no bullying problems at all, and a score of 10 representing a frequently or severely bullied child. Interviews with the teachers are designed to determine what bullying incidents may be happening with the child, and also to assess the child’s personality and therefore his or her vulnerability to bullying. Questions will explore behaviour and personality characteristics of the students, as follows: 1. Would you describe this child as introverted or extroverted? 2. Does this child have friends? How many? Describe how they play together, including the games they play, whether they are cooperative or competitive, and whether there is conflict, and how they go about resolving their conflicts? 3. Is this child able to find solutions to problems with his or her peers? 4. Has this child complained to you about bullying problems? What are they? How often, and how severe are they? 5. Does the child seem quiet or withdrawn? 6. How does the child perform in school? Is homework done? How is participation in class? 7. Would you describe the child as having a sensitive personality, and therefore more reactive to negative remarks or more robust and self-reliant? 8. How would you rate this child’s level of self-esteem? From this interview, a score between 1 and 10 will be assigned to the child, with 1 representing a child with no bullying issues and 10 representing a child with significant bullying issues. Interviews with the parents will be focused on the following questions: 1. How many other children are in the family and what are their ages? 2. How is the child’s relationship with his or her other siblings? 3. Does the child have many friends, a few friends, one best friend, or no friends? 4. Does the child talk about school? 5. Does the child talk about any problems with other children at school? 6. Does the child resist going to school, sleeping in, faking illnesses or other means to stay away from school? 7. Would you describe the child as introverted or extroverted? 8. Would you describe the child as sensitive? 9. How would you describe the child’s moods? The child will be given a score between 1 and 10, with 1 representing no bullying issues, and 10 representing severe bullying issues. The scores from each of the three interviews will be added together to arrive at a final score out of 30. Attendance records will be examined for each student. Absences due to vacations or other known reasons (special field trips, for example) will be excluded from the count. Each full-day absence will count for 3 points. Each half-day absence will count for 2 points. Each late arrival or early leave will count for 1 point. All of the points will be added for each student for a final attendance record score. The results will be presented in graph form, with attendance scores on the x axis and interview scores on the y axis. A statistical analysis will be performed to show the strength of the relationship between bullying issues and attendance. Read More