OVERVIEW AND THEME INFORMATION

• Student Survey Grade 3-8
• Student Survey High School
• Staff Survey

Student Survey Grades 3-8       Return to top

Overview

The Bully Safe Survey (Student Version—Grades 3-8) was developed by Bully Safe Schools, LLC. The questions are based on the most current international research in bullying prevention.

The original version was written in 2005. At that time, it was called the Peaceworks Web-based School Climate and Bullying Prevention Survey, An independent national field study was conducted in 2005-2006 with 7 elementary and middle schools across the United States including schools in Indiana, Michigan, District of Columbia and Maryland. The field study confirmed that the evaluation tool yields meaningful information for school personnel seeking direction and focus for school climate and bullying prevention work. ¹

The survey was updated in 2006 to change some wording and to incorporate new questions regarding cyber-bullying.

The Bully Safe Student Survey (Grades 3-8) is designed to help reduce bullying and improve school climate by helping you recognize the following.:

• Which prosocial factors are at work already to reduce bullying and which factors require attention
• Where supervision needs to be improved
• How helpful students believe school staff members are in addressing their bullying concerns
• Student perceptions of the frequency and severity of bullying in your school setting
• How many and what percentages of students at your school are bullied
• How do students feel when they witness bullying
• What do students do when they see or hear bullying
• How boys and girls differ in their thoughts, feelings and behaviors regarding bullying
• How students in various grades differ in their thoughts, feelings and behaviors regarding bullying

The survey includes 39 multiple-choice questions and is written at a Grade 2.8 reading level using the Fleisch-Kincaid Readability Formula. The first 2 questions are demographical and inquire regarding the student’s grade and gender. The measures can help you decide how to take action and help track progress in your bullying prevention program. The Bully Safe Survey has been used in schools in the United States, Canada and Europe and is seen to be a valid instrument in measuring bullying-related behaviors, attitudes and feelings among students.

The survey results are provided along themes that each relate specifically to a critical factor in effective bullying prevention. These themes follow.

1. Final evaluation report for Peaceworks Web-based school survey tool by CHZ Information Management Services, Inc., February 1, 2006

Theme 1: Victimization—conventional bullying (frequency of victimization for verbal, physical and relational bullying)
Questions 2-5
Bullying is a behavior pattern and is not a random act of aggression. Studies show that school personnel often underestimate frequency of bullying behaviors. Frequency is a factor to which we want to pay close attention. The higher the frequency, the more likely that student is suffering academically and/or emotionally as a result. Three types of bullying are addressed here: verbal, physical and relational. Verbal bullying (hurtful teasing, name calling and threatening) tends to be common with both girls and boys in grades 3-8. Typically, boys have a greater problem with physical bullying, particularly in the lower grades. Girls generally report a greater problem with relational bullying such as gossip, rumors and social exclusion. Though these tendencies exist, be careful about generalizing. Not all girls gossip and spread rumors, and not all boys are physically aggressive. It is very important to consider your results within the unique social milieu of your school and the community within which your school exists.

Theme 2: Victimization—cyber bullying (frequency of victimization for cyber-bullying)
Questions 6-9
Cyber bullying is a rapidly growing form of bullying due to the tremendous growth of electronic communication, especially the internet and cell phones.

Cyberbullying can involve:

• Sending mean, vulgar or threatening messages or images
• Posting sensitive, private information about another person
• Pretending to be someone else in order to make that person look bad
• Intentionally excluding someone from an online group

Children and youth can cyberbully each other through:

• emails
• instant messaging
• text or digital imaging on cell phones
• web pages
• web logs (blogs)
• chat rooms or discussion groups
• other communication technologies

Theme 3: Protective factors
Questions 10-13
Consistent and effective adult intervention is the most important element in bullying prevention. When students are being bullied, they need to know it’s safe and helpful to report to school personnel. Bullying is not normal peer conflict. It is abuse by someone who is using their power to harm another person. Just as with other forms of abuse—domestic violence, for example—students need to know they have advocates to help them. They need to know adults at schools will listen to them and consistently enforce the anti-bullying policy.

Theme 4: Perceived severity
Questions 14-17
Students who are bullied are at greater risk for depression, anxiety disorders and other emotional/behavioral problems. They are also at greater risk to underperform academically. This measure reflects how serious students perceive the bullying problem to be at school, whether they are bullied themselves or not.

Theme 5: Bystander Empathy
Questions 18-21
A major goal of any bullying prevention program is to enhance student empathy. Students with high levels of empathy are less likely to bully, and are generally more likely to help their peers when they witness bullying.

Theme 6: Bystander action
Questions 22-25
The most important factor in bullying prevention is effective and consistent adult intervention. The second most important factor is effective bystander intervention. This section considers what students actually do when they witness bullying incidents. Witnesses to bullying or “bystanders” represent the majority of students. A majority of students in most schools are bystanders—not chronic targets of bullying or students who bully. These students are a positive, potent force to help leverage change in school climate. Often bullying happens out of earshot or the vision of teachers or other adults. Indeed, in these days of cyber-bullying, it is unlikely that adults may be aware of it at all. Instruction in safe, practical and effective bystander intervention skills—including how students can deal with the rapidly developing threat of cyber-bullying—is a critical component of bullying prevention.

Theme 7: High risk areas before and after school
Questions 26-29
Bullying is most likely to occur where there is the least adult supervision. Understanding where your high risk areas are before and after school is a critical factor in reducing bullying.

Theme 8: High risk areas during school
Questions 30-33
Bullying is most likely to occur where there is the least adult supervision. Understanding where your high risk areas are during school is a critical factor in reducing bullying.

Theme 9: Bullying behaviors
Questions 34-37
Self-reports of bullying behavior are useful to measure how much bullying is occurring. This theme measures self-reports of various types of bullying behavior.

Student Survey High School        Return to top

Overview

The Bully Safe Student Survey (High School) was developed by Bully Safe Schools, LLC. The questions are based on the most current international research in bullying prevention.

A panel of current high school principals, counselors and students helped design the survey to help assure the survey is timely and relevant.

This survey is designed to help reduce bullying and improve school climate by helping you recognize the following.:

• Which prosocial factors are at work already to reduce bullying and which factors require attention
• Where supervision needs to be improved
• How helpful students believe school staff members are in addressing their bullying concerns
• Student perceptions of the frequency and severity of bullying in your school setting
• How many and what percentages of students at your school are bullied
• How do students feel when they witness bullying
• What do students do when they see or hear bullying
• How students differ in their thoughts, feelings and behaviors regarding bullying by grade and by gender

The survey includes 46 multiple-choice questions and is written at a Grade 4.5 reading level using the Fleisch-Kincaid Readability Formula. The first 2 questions are demographical and inquire regarding the student’s grade and gender. The measures can help you decide how to take action and help track progress in your bullying prevention program.

The survey results are provided along themes that each relate specifically to a critical factor in effective bullying prevention. These themes follow.

Theme 1: Victimization—conventional bullying (frequency of victimization for verbal, physical and relational bullying)
Questions 3-8
Bullying is a behavior pattern and is not a random act of aggression. Studies show that school personnel often underestimate frequency of bullying behaviors. The higher the frequency, the more likely that student is suffering academically and/or emotionally as a result. Three types of bullying are addressed here: verbal, physical and relational. It is important to consider your results within the unique social milieu of your school and the community within which your school exists.

Theme 2: Victimization—cyber bullying (frequency of victimization for cyber bullying)
Questions 9-12
Cyber bullying is a rapidly growing form of bullying due to the tremendous growth of electronic communication, especially the internet and cell phones.

Cyberbullying can involve:

• Sending mean, vulgar or threatening messages or images
• Posting sensitive, private information about another person
• Pretending to be someone else in order to make that person look bad
• Intentionally excluding someone from an online group

Adolescents can cyberbully each other through:

• emails
• instant messaging
• text or digital imaging on cell phones
• web pages
• web logs (blogs)
• chat rooms or discussion groups
• other communication technologies

Theme 3: Protective factors
Questions 13-21
Consistent and effective intervention by responsible adults and other students are the most important elements in bullying prevention. When students are being bullied, they need to know it’s safe and helpful to report to school personnel, and that other students will help as well. Bullying is not normal peer conflict. It is abuse by someone who is using their power to harm another person. Just as with other forms of abuse—domestic violence, for example—students need to know they have advocates to help them.

Theme 4: Harassment
Questions 22-26
These questions measure the frequency of witnessed incidents of sexual, racial, ethnic and religious harassment.

Theme 5: Perceived severity
Questions 27-33
This measure reflects how serious students perceive the bullying problem to be as defined by verbal, physical, relational and cyber bullying, whether they are bullied themselves or not.

Theme 6: Bystander Empathy
Questions 34-37
A major goal of any bullying prevention initiative is to enhance student empathy. Students with high levels of empathy are less likely to bully, and are generally more likely to help their peers when they witness bullying.  

Theme 7: Bystander action with friends
Questions 38-41
The most important factor in bullying prevention is effective and consistent adult intervention. The second most important factor is effective bystander intervention. This section considers what students actually do when they witness bullying incidents. Witnesses to bullying or “bystanders” represent the majority of students. A majority of students in most high schools are bystanders—not chronic targets of bullying or students who bully. These students are a positive, potent force to help leverage change in school climate. Often bullying happens out of earshot or the vision of teachers or other adults. Indeed, in these days of cyber-bullying, it is unlikely that adults may be aware of it at all. Instruction in safe, practical and effective bystander intervention skills—including how students can deal with the rapidly developing threat of cyber-bullying—is a critical component of bullying prevention.

This theme asks the question: what would the student do if they witnessed a friend being bullied?

Theme 8: Bystander action with non-friends
Questions 42-45
(See Theme 7) This theme asks the question: what would they do if they witnessed bullying of someone they do not know well.

Theme 9: High risk areas
Question 46

Staff Version        Return to top

Overview

Bullying is one of the major social problems facing schools today. Though most young people are fortunate not to be raised in family environments characterized by physical or emotional abuse, most young people do experience bullying—known in psychological literature as peer abuse—every day. They may experience it by being bullied themselves, by taking part in bullying behaviors or as bystanders to bullying.
It is critical that all adults who interact with students are empathic, aware and skilled in dealing with bullying at school.
Definition of bullying: Bullying occurs whenever one or more persons enjoy using power to repeatedly harm one or more other people.
The Bully Safe Survey (Staff Version) is designed to help improve your school climate by helping you recognize the following:

• Strengths and areas of concern in your bullying prevention plan
• Changes over time

Results are provided along 3 themes:

1. Skills and confidence
   This theme shows how skilled and confident staff members feel in dealing with students who bully and who are bullied, and their parents.
2. Perceived helpfulness
   This theme measures how helpful staff members believe they are in dealing with bullying. It can be useful to compare results in this theme with protective factors results in the student survey.
3. Attitudes and beliefs
   This theme measures how staff members think and feel regarding bullying behaviors among children and adolescents.