Despite the fact that definitions of bullying have changed over the years, the concept of bulling as remained as the premeditated, uncalled-for exploitation of authority by one individual or a group of individuals to cause a certain level of agony or misery on another individual be it, once or on several instances. Bullying occurs in many forms but the most common one in schools, has been reported to be oral harassment, for instance, mocking and teasing. Most individuals who fall victim to bullying in school agonize in silence because they fail to report these cases due to fear of their abusers or perhaps out of shame, moreover, most of the students who witness cases of school bullying do not take any meaningful action towards helping the victims mainly because they are predisposed to the idea that it is none of their business to intervene in the matter.
It is a well-known fact that when individuals are exposed to school bullying, they are bound to suffer from a wide range of negative effects either on a long term basis or a short term basis. Recently, most school bullying related reports have brought to notice the fast rising rates of school bullying related cases. One may be inclined to think that there are no more cases of school bullying in this day and age due to the noticeable efforts that schools have been putting in to prevent or stop bullying once and for all but the bitter truth is that school bullying still occurs worldwide.(Bredgen and Paulin, 2018) reported that, students who have unluckily fallen victim to recurrent cases of bullying have mostly been found to experience a wide array of problems ranging from emotional issues, self-loathing, behavioural symptoms such as absolute insecurity compounded by acute anxiety, substantial mental health problems, profound difficulty in sleeping, frequent feelings of sadness and rampant headaches. Students suffering from all these effects are bound to be unhappy and in most cases depressed hence they end up missing school on a frequent basis.
There is a wide discrepancy in the nature of the reported cases of students being bullied in school due to the inconsistencies of the age of the students involved, gender and the ethnic backgrounds of the students involved. Berke and Sticca (2017) assert that, generally speaking, bullying victimization leads to a poor development result, high internalizing and externalizing symptoms and an overall decrease in academic achievement on a short term basis. However, these adverse effects of bullying, in some cases, diminished in the long run hence showing the potential for resilience in students who have at one time or another experienced bullying. Therefore, ancillary preventive interventions should be put in place with the main aim of building resilience and addressing student’s pre-existing susceptibilities to bullying outcomes.
This study will seek to ascertain the actual level of the frequency of both reported and unreported cases related to bullying in schools among students of North Central University and the link between school bullying and psychological and psychosomatic wellbeing of students. This study will vary from previous studies in the sense that it will seek to differentiate the individuals who at one time or another were involved in the actual bullying deeds from those that are bullies and are also bullied, those that bully others but are not bullied, those that are only bullied and those that are neither bullies nor are bullied (Lupien, Vitaro and Boivin 2017).
Basically, there are two types of investigative designs that may be employed in this study namely;
So what is an experiment? It is defined as a study whereby, an investigator tries to control the level of a particular self-sustaining variable and then measure the final result. These investigative techniques have been proven to be very efficient techniques of evaluating cause and effect relationships. In order to be able to efficiently select the best experimental design to be used in this study it is important to understand both of them and the differences that they share.
Well, in the case of true experiments, all the important factors that might, in one way or another, have an effect on a certain phenomenon of interest are absolutely controlled, for example in this study there might be need to control certain aspects such as the environmental and social factors that the participants are exposed to in their day to day lives. The most distinguishing feature that denotes a true experimental design is that the units being studied, which in this case are individual students, are assigned to different treatment conditions (Insights associations, 2019). However, it may not be always possible to regulate all the factors that are of great importance to the study, hence there is serious need to use or implement a quasi-experimental investigative strategy (Lawrence Fong and Rob Law, 2016)
Aloe and Becker (2017) define a quasi-experiment as basically an empirical interventional study used to approximate the unpremeditated effect on a particular target population while abstaining from any random any other method or means assignment. So, basically, a quasi-experiment is meant to enable the investigator to regulate the consignment to the treatment circumstance through except random assignment. In certain cases where quasi-experimental investigative designs are used, the researcher may have a certain level of control over the assignment to treatment. However, it is important to note that quasi-experiments are subject to trepidations on the subject of internal validity since the treatment and control groups may not be equivalent at baseline.
So, having looked at both true experimental designs and quasi experimental designs this study would be considered quasi because the participants have not been randomly assigned to conditions hence can be referred to as a non-equivalent group design. However, the researcher can take steps to ensure that the study groups are as similar as possible, for instance, in this study; the researcher could try to select two classes where the students are close in age and have almost similar ethnic backgrounds.
The major effects of school bullying discussed on this report are academic performance and psychological and psychosomatic wellbeing of students who are bullied.
The statistical hypotheses are:
H01: School bullying significantly affects in academic performance of students.
H11: School bullying does not significantly affects in academic performance of students.
H02: School bullying significantly affects psychological and psychosomatic wellbeing of students.
H12: School bullying does not significantly affect psychological and psychosomatic wellbeing of students.
The scales of measurement range from nominal, ordinal, interval with varying precisions presented in increasing precision. In this study the scales of measures are used to gauge statistical items represented in the study. For instance to measure age; interval scale of measurement is used to show the age brackets i.e. 10-15 years. To classify the level of school bullying categorized into extreme, average, physical and emotional ordinal scale of measurement will be used. To represent student’s gender nominal scale will be employed.
Internal and external validity are notions that reflect whether or not the results of a particular study can be considered to be meaningful and trustworthy. Since we have established that this study will be largely quasi experimental, it will be subject to concerns over its internal validity mainly because the treatment and control groups may not be comparable at the starting point. With all quasi experimental studies, it may not be possible to persuasively demonstrate a causal link between the treatment conditions and the observed outcomes. While it may be difficult to control which students are related to bullying in one way or another, it may have a wide applicability to other similar settings since the research takes place in a natural setting. This serves to show that the external validity of this research is quite robust.
When conducting research it is always important to observe the set ethic. This includes notifying the respondents about the research, ensuring that their participation is voluntary and that they can decide to opt out any time. Maintaining respondent’s data privacy is also important. These are summarized as follows; beneficence and no maleficence, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice, and respect for an individuals’ rights and dignity.
References
Aloe, A. M., Becker, B. J., Duvendack, M., Valentine, J. C., Shemilt, I., & Waddington, H. (2017). Quasi-experimental study designs series—paper 9: collecting data from quasi-experimental studies. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 89, 77-83.
Brendgen, M., & Poulin, F. (2018). Continued bullying victimization from childhood to young adulthood: A longitudinal study of mediating and protective factors. Journal of abnormal child psychology, 46(1), 27-39.
Burke, T., Sticca, F., & Perren, S. (2017). Everything’s gonna be alright! The longitudinal interplay among social support, peer victimization, and depressive symptoms. Journal of youth and adolescence, 46(9), 1999-2014.
I., Lupien, S. J., Vitaro, F., Dionne, G., & Boivin, M. (2017). Environmental influence of problematic social relationships on adolescents’ daily cortisol secretion: A monozygotic twin-difference study. Psychological Medicine, 47(3), 460-470.
Insights associations, 2019. Experimental designs. Retrieved from https://www.insightsassociation.org/issues-policies/glossary/true-experimental-design-0
Lawrence Hoc Nang Fong, Rob Law, 2016. True Experiments. Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJCHM-10-2014-0506/full/html
Research connections, 2019. Types of experiments. Retrieved from https://www.researchconnections.org/childcare/datamethods/experimentsquasi.jsp
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