5.3 Inferential Statistics
5.3.1 How prevalent are „bullies‟, „victims‟ and „bystanders‟ and are
The girls were asked with whom they would identify in the bullying scenario that they had described in the questionnaire, in order to obtain an indirect measurement of their bully/victim status and an indication of the prevalence of bullies and victims in this sample. This was considered a fairly „safe‟ way for the participants to disclose this
information. The majority of the respondents in this sample (60.9%, n = 98) seemed to identify with the by-stander. However, about a third of them (33.5%, n = 54) felt that they would be the victim, suggesting that a significant proportion of girls in this sample have had enough experience of being bullied that they identify with this role.
Only a few (5.6%, n = 9) respondents identified with the bully in the scenario, a result which is not surprising given the limitations of self-report format questionnaires.
The rating-scale section of the questionnaire, which was designed to measure the extent to which the respondents in the study were experiencing victimization or were the perpetrators of bullying was analysed using the Kruskal-Wallis test for unrelated samples (a non-parametric test). This test was appropriate since the data violated the assumption of homogeneity of variance which is necessary for parametric tests to yield valid results. Significant differences were found to exist between the age groups with respect to the degree of bullying and victimization occurring (χ2 = 17.730, df = 2, p = 0.000), suggesting that the two older age groups of girls are statistically more likely to be involved in perpetrating bullying than the younger age group of girls. In addition, significant differences were found to exist between the age groups with respect to the degree of victimisation occurring (χ2 = 7.878, df = 2, p = 0.019), suggesting that 10 to 14 year age group is statistically more likely to be victimised to a greater degree than the oldest and youngest age groups.
5.3.2 What different types of bullying are prevalent and are there significant differences across the age groups?
A total of 167 learners responded to the first bullying vignette, and 165 gave a response to the second bullying vignette (Table 2). It is interesting to note that in the first scenario relational bullying in the form of betrayal (back-stabbing, gossiping, telling of secrets) did not feature highly, whereas in the second scenario this type of aggression accounted for over a quarter of the primary responses counted. A similar trend was noted with the responses counted for relational bullying in the form of social exclusion/ostracism, which was much more prevalent in the second scenario.
Contrary to this, the two most frequently cited aggression-types in the first scenario, namely emotional (teasing, playing tricks) and non-physical/verbal reduced
substantially in the second. Counts for physical aggression were the only category to
remain stable across the vignettes. It is possible that the respondents were
unconsciously influenced by the two different pictures, as the first scenario depicted only the victim, whereas the second scenario depicted the victim in the foreground and the bullies in the background. This latter photograph may therefore have elicited more interpersonal emotions from the respondents, thereby increasing the frequency of social types of aggression being named first.
Across the age groups, the distribution of different types of bullying is extremely skewed. The percentage of physical bullying responses decreased substantially as the girls‟ age-group increased. Conversely, the percentages of the categories of social exclusion and emotional bullying increased consistently from the younger to the older age groups. The category of betrayal increased substantially within the older age groups in the first scenario, but seemed to peak in the 10 to 14 year age group in the second scenario. Bullying in the form of verbal abuse also seemed to peak in the 10 to 14 year age group.
Type of aggression
Scenario 1 n = 167
* 2 missing cases
Scenario 2 n = 165
* 4 missing cases
6-9 10-14 15-18 Total 6-9 10-14 15-18 Total
Physical 10 (47.6%)
6 (9%)
2 (2.5%)
12 (7.2%)
9 (42.9%)
6 (9.2%)
4 (5.1%)
11 (6.7%) Social
exclusion/
ostracism
0 (0%)
3 (4.5%)
11 (13.9%)
14 (8.4%)
0 (0%)
8 (12.3%)
20 (25.3%)
34 (20.6%)
Betrayal (backstab, gossip)
0 (0%)
2 (3%)
8 (10.1%)
10 (6%)
5 (23.8%)
18 (27.7%)
18 (22.8%)
42 (25.5%)
Emotional/
teasing
2 (9.5%)
32 (47.8%)
44 (55.7%)
80 (47.9%)
1 (4.8%)
16 (24.6%)
20 (25.3%)
58 (35.2%) Non-physical/
verbal
9 (42.9%)
24 (35.8%)
14 (17.7%)
51 (30.5%)
6 (28.6%)
17 (26.2%)
17 (21.5%)
20 (12.1%)
Table 2: Types of aggression cited in response to bullying scenarios
The chi-square test found a statistically significant association between „age group‟
and „type of aggression‟ in this sample (χ2 = 3.918, df = 8, p = 0.000) An analysis of
the adjusted residuals (Appendix D, Table 3) show that, at the 1% level, the six to nine year age group is significantly more likely than expected to name incidents of
„physical‟ bullying and the 15 to 18 year age group is significantly more likely than expected to name incidents of „social exclusion‟.
The logistic regression of the specific types of aggression named by the girls,
displayed in Graph 3 and Graph 4 below, found statistically significant relationships between the presence of physical types of aggression and age in years (Wald = 8.200, df = 1, p = .004) as well as between social exclusion and age in years (Wald = 9.546, df = 1, p = .002). The probability of physical aggression decreases from 30.3% in an eight year old, to 16.3% in a 12 year old and 8.1% in a 16 year old. The probability of social exclusion increases from 26.6% in an eight year old, to 41.1% in a 12 year old and 57.2% in a 16 year old. No significant relationship was found between years of age and the odds of the respondent citing „betrayal‟, „emotional abuse‟ or „verbal abuse‟ in response to the bullying vignette.
Age in equal steps
17.93 17.02 16.05 15.01 14.03 13.05 12.01 11.04 10.06 9.02 8.04 7.00
Value Probofphysicalaggression
0.35
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
Probability of physical aggression with age
Graph 3: The probability of physical aggression occurring with increasing age
Age in equal steps
17.50 15.00
12.50 10.00
7.50
Probability of social exclusion
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
Social exclusion with age
Graph 4: The probability of social exclusion occurring with increasing age