School Bulling Intervention Program by Olweus - Essay Example

? Article Review: School Bulling Intervention Program by Olweus System Science Presented: Systems science: Article Review In the current world, each operation has to be treated as a system in order for the right methodologies and approaches to be employed in solving a particular problem. System scientists are aimed at ensuring at least one of the following has been met: investigating, representing or intervening in complexity that goes through theory and application and theory of modeling and /or methodology that draws the important notions of systems. Such system is the schooling program that involved many instances and cases of bullying. The article “evaluation design and effects of the Olweus bullying prevention program” by Olweus (2005) would be reviewed in this case to portray the effectiveness of extended cohorts approach in research. This article critically evaluates the effectiveness of the program in preventing bullying in schools, through a selection of cohorts designs. Conceptual model Olweus (2005) argues that there is some degree of difficulty in determining the effectiveness of the available studies in preventing bullying in schools upon their implementation. Therefore, according to Olweus there is no need to randomly assign classes/ schools in the various treatment conditions that are usually grouped according to intervention, and no intervention in assigning the control group. The lack of these randomized groups makes it hard for the investigator, and requires that the investigator turn to more elaborate quasi-experimental design. These quasi experimental designs according to Olweus are lacking in their effectiveness and this makes Olweus to settle on one intervention of this nature; that is the selection cohort design also termed as the age cohort design. This particular cohort involved about 2.5 students who were followed over a 2.5 years period and their qualification as cohorts was mainly due to the different class levels that related them in these schools. In explaining this cohort quasi experimental study, Olweus suggests that there is a need to rule out most if not all of the alternative explanations in the findings due to confounding or irrelevant factors that would be part of the internal validity to the study as would be explained later. This makes the quasi experimental and experimental designs more difficult where randomization is not carried out, as more irrelevant interpretations are well ruled out in case the study is carried out through randomized sampling procedures. The problem of maturation in this study is taken care of by ensuring that all the participants in the study are of the same age gap. Important is that there occurs a relation between bullying and agenda these developmental changes needed to be controlled effectively if appropriate results were to be obtained. In the First Bergan Project that Olweus basis the argument on, there is however shortcomings in that some collected data in the extended selection cohorts might not be applied in evaluation of the program effects. The longitudinal design of the experiment makes it impractical to take this into account during the statistical analysis. This would make this design to have less precision in the final results and having less power as compared to using designs where repeated measures are incorporated. The repeataiton of data and the presence of irrelevant factors in the intervention program make this approach a sensitive one and as Olweus argues, care has to be taken in making decisions regarding the relevant and irrelevant factors in such designs. Olweus despite these challenges finds the use of extended cohorts design to be of much importance and would effectively lead to concluding on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a particular intervention program, besides this approach being easier to use and a natural step in evaluating the happenings in schools concerning activities related to bullying. Research design Olweus used the extended cohorts design to review and evaluate the effects of the intervention programs that had been applied in several studies. The first studies and programs to be evaluated was the First Bergen Project against Bullying running from 1983 to 1985. This broad coverage was meant to ensure all the issues and studies under the Bergen project were incorporated in the design. This study design was similar to the new Bergen Project against Bullying between 1997 and 1998 and the New National initiative against Bullying that had evaluation data from 2001 to 2003.Whiel the first Bergen project has about 2500 student participants, the new Bergen project had 3200 student participants, while the New National Initiative against Bullying had 21000 student participants. All of these studies had students between grades 4 and 7. The design of Olweus program involved critically summarizing the results of the Bergen program, with the indicated results and trends in these projects well indicated and summarized to offer an informed decision regarding design of Olweus Bullying intervention program. For example the New Bergen project revealed that there were negative effects of interventions intended to counteract antisocial behavior and delinquent behavior (Olweus, 2005). To measure the effectiveness of the intervention programs, results of one of the cohorts could be analyzed critically to register the observed changes in areas that could indicate that the changes happened as a result of the intervention program. The new national initiative against bullying in Norway in 2000 that was implemented by the Olweus Group against Bullying and antisocial behavior was more enlightening concerning Olweus research design, and involved training instructors candidates that were supposed to lead in recurring staff discussion groups. The use of staff discussion groups in the Norwegian initiative was also instrumental in portraying the ideology and design of Olweus program that aimed tackling the bullying issues form all perspectives and stakeholders. That more information regarding bullying, how it could be contained and the necessary prevention mechanism implemented, makes the Olweus research design to be comprehensive, broad, more elaborate and involving the necessary parties. The use of the broad approaches in extended cohort studies to form the necessary hypothesis were the main design element that Olweus utilized in hypothesizing on bullying and coming up with the necessary prevention methods that wren supposed to prevent bullying. Threats to internal validity Maturation has been indicated as the largest threat to internal validity in the study by Olweus. This refers to the changes that the subjects might undergo in the process of the research and that are not related to the independent variable. For example, by taking students between the ages of grade 4 and 7, there was a possibility that some grade 7 students due to psychological maturity might refrain from the bullying acts or are either influenced to stop these bullying acts. This would not have an effect on the bullying status in these schools though there would be indication that bullying had significantly subsidized. This was therefore a great threat to maturity. The threat of history was also significant in the study. Suppose during the questionnaires session some students indicated significant cases of bullying in the schools. After threats and fear of the senior students the lower level students might reiterate their earlier positions and report contrary to their first statements. The elapsing of time could have made the higher level students to coerce the lower level students to reiterate their earlier positions in fear of reprisals from school leadership. Testing threat was also a significant threat to validity in this research. The use of several extended cohorts over a time frame could have made it possible for different sets of data to be collected from the student respondents or staff, and though Olweus argues this threat was well catered for; there still could be still cases where duplication of data was possible. This would have an effect on the final results obtained. Selection threats were more pronounced in the research due to the fact that as Olweus argues there was limited use of randomized procedures that are used in selecting the sampling sample. There were possibilities that the control group and the test groups differed considerable over some aspects or variables such as the altruistic behaviors among the respondents. The dependent variable could be affected by this approach. This might be compounded by the use of different cohorts and studies in the formulation of the study. The effectiveness of Olweus bullying intervention program has its effectiveness from the design of the study that involved a broad integration of cohort studies and other relevant studies over the use to come up with certain hypothesis statements and findings that aided in formulation of a more effective approach. Though there are lower rates of validity threats, the study portrays how a system such as the schools could be integrated with an aim of solving a problem successfully. References Olweus D., (2005). A useful evaluation design and effects of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. Psychology, Crime and Law. 11(4), 389-402. Read More