Assessment of the effectiveness of a new anti-bullying program in Belgium
(2018) EARA (European Association for Research in Adolescence) 2018 — Location: Ghent University, Belgium (12.September.2018)
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- Abstract
- School bullying is an international phenomenon, and its prevalence among French-speaking students in Belgium is notably high (HBSC 2014). Despite the availability of several anti-bullying programs (Fox, Farrington & Ttofi, 2012), no evidence-based program has been implemented yet in the French-speaking part of Belgium. Three years ago, the Ministry of Education decided to finance the dissemination of an anti-bullying program developed by a Walloon university and mandated a research team from another university to assess the implementation and the effectiveness of this program. The program contained two main components based on territoriality and emotional intelligence. The first one targeted the supervision of the school playground spaces by painting different areas in specific colors, depending on the behaviors permitted within (e.g. an area dedicated to ball games). The second one aimed the teachers to carry out daily mediation sessions with their pupils after recess time. During these sessions, children were invited to share their emotional states and to collectively find solutions to address negative ones. Research question: The aim of this project was to assess the effectiveness of this new anti-bullying program among children and early adolescents. What are the effects of this program on student bullying, victimization, perceptions of school climate, and well-being? Methods: This study used a quasi-experimental design, with an intervention group and a control group, a pre-test and a post-test. 22 schools applying for the program were randomly divided into an intervention group and a waiting-list group. Two waves of data were collected one year apart (January 2016 - January 2017). 2110 students from grades 4 to 6 (mean age = 10.28) and 182 teachers filled out an online questionnaire at the pre-test, 2065 students and 144 teachers did it at the post-test. The sample was geographically and socio-economically diverse, with 52,3% boys among students. Student questionnaire included measures of bullying, victimization, perceptions of school climate, and well-being. Teacher questionnaire included measures of perceptions of school climate, collective and personal efficacy beliefs in tackling bullying, and well-being. All measures were based on validated scales and had good internal consistency. Results: MANOVAs indicated that the two groups were equivalent at T1 on most variables. Some significant small effects of time were found, positive on some variables and negative on other ones. No significant interaction between time and group were found, except for perceived school violence, which increased in the intervention group but not in the control group. Implications: The effectiveness of the new program was not supported by the findings. These results highlight the importance of systematic evaluation of program effectiveness before dissemination at a large scale (Frey et al., 2005; Gottfredson et al., 2015). They also suggest that decision-makers and practitioners should be better informed about the criteria of program quality and effectiveness to help them to choose relevant anti-bullying interventions.
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Tolmatcheff, C., & Galand, B. (2018). Assessment of the effectiveness of a new anti-bullying program in Belgium. EARA (European Association for Research in Adolescence) 2018, Ghent University, Belgium. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/124668