08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
Development and Testing of a Self-assessment Tool to Measure Schools’ Preparedness to Prevent and Respond to Bullying and Cyberbullying
Nina Van Dyke1, Fiona MacDonald1, Rachael Bajayo2, Chinh Duc Nguyen1, Cynthia Leung1, Sophie Francis2
1Victoria University, Australia; 2Alannah & Madeline Foundation, Australia
Presenting Author: Van Dyke, Nina
Bullying, which includes cyberbullying and face-to-face bullying, is amongst the most pervasive threats to the wellbeing of children and young people. Schools are important social environments, at the forefront of managing bullying behaviours. The rapidly changing and complex nature of bullying requires schools to put in place and maintain systems to prepare for and respond to such activities. Schools must also continually test and refine these systems to ensure optimal performance. Despite this clear need, there is a lack of school level, self-assessment tools that enable schools to assess and measure their preparedness to deal with bullying and other disruptive activities.
This study draws from the Social Ecological Theory of bullying and victimisation, in which bullying is seen as embedded in a larger social context that includes peer groups, schools, families, neighbourhoods, communities, etc. (Bauman & Yoon 2014). In addition, the study is informed by school climate literature, which draws from multiple theories, including behaviourism, social learning theory, prevention science, and systems change (Bosworth & Judkins 2014).
The aim of this study was to describe the development and reliability and validity testing of a systems-level, self-assessment tool. The tool can be used by schools to evaluate their level of preparation to prevent and respond to bullying and cyberbullying, and other events that negatively disrupt the social cohesiveness of their school. This work forms part of a larger project conducted with the Alannah & Madeline Foundation to evaluate their eSmart Schools program. eSmart is a long-term change program designed to educate, track, monitor, and prevent bullying and cyberbullying.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe initial generation of items to include was based on a review of the relevant Australian and international literature (academic and grey), Australian government guidelines, and input from eSmart staff at the Alannah & Madeline Foundation. This foundational work identified five “focus areas” with a total of 40 items developed. The five focus areas were: Gathering, Analysis, and Use of Data; Gateway Behaviours; Response; Reporting; and School Climate. In addition to these 40 items, schools were asked to respond to two “global” questions that asked schools to rate their overall systems-level preparation to: (a) prevent, and (b) respond to bullying and cyberbullying. These questions were asked immediately prior to, and immediately after, the more specific 40 items. Prior to being asked the first global question, participants listened to a short audio vignette depicting a bullying scenario. Participants were asked to respond to all questions with this scenario in mind. The second set of “global” questions was followed by three questions evaluating the audio vignette. Finally, participants were provided with the opportunity to provide any additional comments or feedback.
The initial tool was piloted with 12 school principals. Participating schools included primary, secondary, and combined schools, from all three Australian school sectors – government, Catholic, and Independent. Feedback from the pilot resulted in minor changes to the tool.
A further 36 school principals then completed the tool. The original target sample size was 50 schools; however, COVID-19 negatively affected participation rates. Both classic Item Response Theory and Rasch Analyses were used to examine and refine the 40-item instrument.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsAn examination of individual items for very high mean values (>3.5 on the 4-point scale), coupled with small standard deviations (<.70), low Corrected-Total Item Correlation scores (<.4), and increase in Cronbach’s alpha if item deleted, resulted in a reduction of the original 40-item tool to 24 items. Rasch Analysis of the 24-item tool suggested the deletion of two additional items and a reduction of response options from a four-point to a three-point scale.
The final instrument consisted of 22 items. It demonstrated good internal reliability, discriminant validity, convergent validity, and unidimentionality.
Schools may use the SSAT-22 in several ways. They may, for example, use it as a monitoring tool – to track progress over time – overall and/or in each of the five Focus Areas. In its current format, the tool is designed to be used by schools once a year. They may also wish to examine individual SSAT-22 items within Focus Areas, to identify at a more granular level their strengths and challenges. In this study, the SSAT was completed by one person at each school – usually the Principal or eSmart Advisor. However, schools may find it useful to have multiple staff complete the tool, including the health and wellbeing advisor, and discuss any discrepancies in responses. Finally, as part of a broader school consortium, schools may want to compare results with other schools, and collaboratively explore ways to improve.
Recognising the small sample size used to test and validate the instrument, it is hoped that a larger administration will be conducted in subsequent years, with additional analyses to further refine the instrument. Future research should test the usefulness of the tool for schools outside Australia.
ReferencesChalmers, C., Campbell, M. A., Spears, B. A., Butler, D., Cross, D., Slee, P., & Kift, S. (2016). School policies on bullying and cyberbullying: perspectives across three Australian states. Educational Research, 58(1), 91-109. doi:10.1080/00131881.2015.1129114
Cook, S. (2021). Cyberbullying facts and statistics for 2018 – 2021. Retrieved from https://www.comparitech.com/internet-providers/cyberbullying-statistics/
Craig, W., Boniel-Nissim, M., King, N., Walsh, S. D., Boer, M., Donnelly, P. D., . . . Pickett, W. (2020). Social media use and cyber-bullying: A cross-national analysis of young people in 42 countries. Journal of adolescent health, 66(6), S100-S108. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.03.006
Farrell, A. D., Sullivan, T. N., Sutherland, K. S., Corona, R., & Masho, S. (2018). Evaluation of the Olweus Bully Prevention Program in an urban school system in the USA. Prevention science, 19(6), 833-847. doi:10.1007/s11121-018-0923-4
Gaffney, H., Farrington, D. P., & Ttofi, M. M. (2019). Examining the efectiveness of school-bullying intervention programs globally: a meta-analysis. International Journal of Bullying Prevention, 1(1), 14-31. doi:10.1007/s42380-019-0007-4
Hall, W. J., & Chapman, M. V. (2018). The Role of school context in implementing a statewide anti-bullying policy and protecting students. Educational Policy, 32(4), 507-539.
Hong, J. S., & Espelage, D. L. (2012). A review of research on bullying and peer victimization in school: An ecological system analysis. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(4), 311-322. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2012.03.003
Jadambaa, A., Thomas, H. J., Scott, J. G., Graves, N., Brain, D., & Pacella, R. (2019). Prevalence of traditional bullying and cyberbullying among children and adolescents in Australia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 53(9), 878-888. doi:10.1177/0004867419846393
Nikolaou, D. (2017). Do anti-bullying policies deter in-school bullying victimization? International Review of Law and Economics, 50, 1-6. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2017.03.001
Pennell, D., Campbell, M., & Tangen, D. (2020). What influences Australian secondary schools in their efforts to prevent and intervene in cyberbullying?. Educational Research, 62(3), 284-303.
Slee, P., Sullivan, K., Green, V. A., Harcourt, S., & Lynch, T. E. (2016). Research on bullying in schools in Australasia. In P. K. Smith, K. Kwak, & Y.
Toda (Eds.), School bullying in different cultures : Eastern and Western perspectives (pp. 55-72). Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
Tiller, E., Greenland, N., Christie, R., Kos, A., Brennan, N., Di Nicola, K., & Yáñez-Marquina, L. (2021). Youth Survey Report 2021. Sydney, NSW: Mission Australia.
08. Health and Wellbeing Education
Paper
Conceptualizing adolescents’ everyday stressors using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) classification system
Lisa Hellström1, Madeleine Sjöman1, Karin Enskär2
1Malmö University, Sweden; 2Uppsala University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Hellström, Lisa
Recent research indicates that there is uncertainty among children as well as among adults of where to draw the line between everyday stressors and mental health problems that could indicate a need for a common terminology and language regarding mental health (Wickström & Lindholm, 2020; Hellström & Beckman, 2021). The increased prevalence rates of self-reported mental health problems such as bad mood, difficulty sleeping, headaches or stomachache among youth shows a worrying trend in Sweden as well as internationally (Hagquist et al., 2019; Potrebny et al., 2017). At the same time, mild symptoms of mental health problems can be relatively common and be an expression of everyday challenges (Hellström & Beckman, 2021; Wickström & Lindholm, 2020). This contradictory trend is confirmed in the largescale cross-national survey Health Behavior in School-Aged Children, showing reports of very good health and quality of life among young people in Sweden as well as an increase in self-reported mental health problems (Public Health Agency of Sweden, 2018).
Adolescence is a period that involve many changes in different areas such as increasing academic demands and academic competition, a decrease in teacher-student relationship closeness or school safety, rearrangement of relationships with parents and peers including an increase in social comparison, identity issues, as well as thoughts about the future (Bremberg, 2015; Brown, 2009; Tetzner et al., 2017). In addition, the increased emphasis on high-stakes testing, assessment and grading due to recent school reforms in Sweden have shown potentially negative effects on Swedish pupil’s health (Högberg et al., 2021). There is a need to identify what causes stress in the everyday life of adolescents as they could potentially develop into mental health problems (ref). Studies show that when adolescents and young adults put it into their own words, the most pronounced everyday stressors include academic failures, relationship problems, negative self-evaluations through social comparisons, and other performance-oriented tasks (Gustafsson et al., 2010; Hellström & Beckman, 2021).
To be able to design interventions to decrease mental health problems and increase mental wellbeing for youth a common language is needed. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) provides a conceptual framework and terminology for describing health and functioning in everyday life and can serve as a common framework for developing comparable concepts (WHO, 2001). According to ICF, participation is defined as involvement in life situations promoting health and wellbeing (WHO, 2001). The ICF defines components of health included as domains described from the perspectives of the body, the individual and society. Developing a common language will make it easier to interact, discuss and plan health interventions based on young people’s perceptions (Adolfsson et al., 2018; Augustine et al., 2021; Klang Ibragimova et al., 2011; WHO, 2007). The current study investigates how youth explain stressors in their everyday life that could be conceptualized as everyday challenges and possibly symptoms of mental health problems. Hence, the aim of this study is to conceptualize adolescents’ experiences of everyday stressors, using the ICF as an analytic tool.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis study is a part of a wider project aiming to test and evaluate an intervention to enhance mental wellbeing among school students using an experience-based co-design. The sample includes 65 adolescents (45 girls and 20 boys) in grades 7–9 at seven schools in southern Sweden. Data collection took place during the autumn of 2020. The youth were identified through a purposive sampling procedure, by a gatekeeper assigned by the principal at each school, with the intention of obtaining a wide distribution of experiences to gain transferability of the results. At each school, eight to twelve participants were included. The participants were told to discuss perceived everyday stressors in pairs/smaller groups and documented words from the discussion on post-it notes. The documented words constitute the empirical data in this study. A data analysis with both manifest and latent elements, inspired by a deductive reasoning approach has been adopted. We have aimed to stay close to the text, describe what the adolescents actually say and describe the visible and obvious in the text. To make the manifest linking processes systematic and consistent, the process of coding the documented words/concepts to ICF codes (e.g., “Handling stress and other psychological demands”, “Global psychological functions” and “Emotional functions”) followed established linking rules based on the ICF (Cieza et al., 2005). To ensure that the latent interpretation could lean on a multidisciplinary background knowledge about child functioning, all three authors with different professional backgrounds conducted individual coding (Fayed et al., 2012). In cases were the authors’ linking processes resulted in different ICF codes, a latent procedure with interpretation of the underlying meaning of the content on the post-it notes were conducted by two of the authors (LH and MS). The meaning of the content on each post-it note were thoroughly discussed until consensus was achieved. 39 number of linkages were discussed jointly by the two researchers in relation to the coding scheme. When consensus was obtained, the exact agreement was 94 percentage inter-coder agreement on the 2nd ICF-level. The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (reg.no. 2019-06430 / 2020-04-07).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe findings raise awareness about the concept of everyday stressors among adolescents. The aspects of everyday life that adolescents find challenging and stressful can be conceptualized and guide conversations with and about young people and guide supportive actions. The adolescence in this study expressed high psychological demands in combination with a lack of support, mainly from parents, and a lack of resources, mainly time restraints as great challenges. These demands can most often be related to performing well in school or in social contexts. Demands and their effect on wellbeing are essential aspects in the lives of young people when it comes to everyday stressors that needs to be considered in everyday conversations. For parents, school personnel or other adults this could mean talking to adolescents and young people about overwhelming demands and help them sort out what demands they can influence and what demands are hard for them to tackle alone. Here, the relation between demand and control may be a useful theoretical framework and efforts to strengthen a sense of coherence could be a useful coping strategy providing adolescents and young people with a greater sense of control. In addition to demands, how they are perceived by others and how they compare to others are other sources of stress among the adolescents. Social comparisons can function as tools for self-evaluation and self-enhancement in young people’s identity development. However, when these comparisons become stressful and potentially harmful, parents, school personnel or other adults can talk to young people about alternative strategies for identity development. Based on the results in this study in combination with previous research showing a lack of knowledge surrounding mental health, examples of relevant theoretical frameworks to enhance adults’ and young people’s mental health literacy could be demand/control model, sense of coherence and social comparison theory.
ReferencesAdolfsson, M., Sjöman, M., & Björck-Åkesson, E. (2018). ICF-CY as a framework for understanding child engagement in preschool. Frontiers in Education, 3, 36.
Cieza, A., Geyh, S., Chatterji, S., Kostanjsek, N., Ustun, B., & Stucki, G. (2005). ICF linking rules: an update based on lessons learned. J rehabil med, 37(4), 212-218.
Fayed, N., Cieza, A., & Bickenbach, J. (2012). Illustrating child-specific linking issues using the Child Health Questionnaire. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 91(13), S189-S198.
Gustafsson, J.-E., Allodi Westling, M., Alin Åkerman, B., Eriksson, C., Eriksson, L., Fischbein, S., Granlund, M., Gustafsson, P., Ljungdahl, S., & Ogden, T. (2010). School, learning and mental health: A systematic review. Stockholm: Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien.
Hagquist, C., Due, P., Torsheim, T., & Välimaa, R. (2019). Cross-country comparisons of trends in adolescent psychosomatic symptoms–a Rasch analysis of HBSC data from four Nordic countries. Health and quality of life outcomes, 17(1), 1-13.
Hellström, L., & Beckman, L. (2021). Life Challenges and Barriers to Help Seeking: Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Voices of Mental Health. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(24), 13101.
Högberg, B., Lindgren, J., Johansson, K., Strandh, M., & Petersen, S. (2021). Consequences of school grading systems on adolescent health: evidence from a Swedish school reform. Journal of education policy, 36(1), 84-106.
Klang Ibragimova, N., Pless, M., Adolfsson, M., Granlund, M., & Björck-Åkesson, E. (2011). Using content analysis to link texts on assessment and intervention to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health-version for Children and Youth (ICF-CY). Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 43(8), 728-733.
Potrebny, T., Wiium, N., & Lundegård, M. M.-I. (2017). Temporal trends in adolescents’ self-reported psychosomatic health complaints from 1980-2016: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS one, 12(11), e0188374.
Public Health Agency of Sweden, (2018). Skolbarns hälsovanor i Sverige 2017/18 [The Public Health Agency. Health Behaviour in School-aged Children, Swedish report 2017/18].
Tetzner, J., Becker, M., & Maaz, K. (2017). Development in multiple areas of life in adolescence: Interrelations between academic achievement, perceived peer acceptance, and self-esteem. International journal of behavioral development, 41(6), 704-713.
WHO. (2001). International Classification of Functioning, DIsability and Health. W. H. Organization.
WHO. (2007). International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY). W. H. Organization.
Wickström, A., & Lindholm, S. K. (2020). Young people’s perspectives on the symptoms asked for in the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children survey. Childhood, 27(4), 450-467.
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