Teachers’ and cognitive-behavioral approaches to bullying

Teachers’ self-efficacy, perceived effectiveness beliefs, and reported use of cognitive-behavioral approaches to bullying among pupils: Effects of in-service training with the I DECIDE program

Michael J. Boulton

University of Chester

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Abstract

Despite the promise of being effective in tacking bullying and conduct disorder, cognitive-behavioral (C-B) interventions are under-used by teachers. Little detailed information exists as to why this is the case. The current study with junior school teachers in the UK (N = 249) confirmed this low reported usage and showed that while teachers tended to believe that C-B approaches would be effective, most held rather low self-efficacy beliefs. Attending a workshop on a specific C-B approach, the I DECIDE program, had positive effects on perceived effectiveness and self-efficacy beliefs, and longer durations of training (three days) were more beneficial than shorter durations (half/one day). In line with Outcome-Expectancy theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, self-efficacy and duration of training predicted an increase in reported usage of I DECIDE across an eight month period, and self-efficacy fully mediated the association between duration of training and increase in reported usage. The implications of these findings for overcoming impediments to the more widespread use of C-B approaches by teachers to tackling bullying were discussed, particularly the notion that attending training of sufficient duration coupled with a more explicit attention on fostering self-efficacy will pay dividends.


Teachers’ self-efficacy, perceived effectiveness beliefs, and reported use of cognitive-behavioral approaches to bullying among pupils: Effects of in-service training with the I DECIDE program

Bullying involves repeated attempts by a more powerful individual (or group) to hurt, humiliate, upset or otherwise cause distress to a less powerful individual (or group) (Olweus, 1993). It occurs frequently in schools (Rose, Espelage, & Monda-Amaya, 2009; Solberg & Olweus, 2003), leads to considerable distress among victims (Reijntes, Kamphuis, Prinzie, & Telch, 2010; Vaughn, Fu, Bender, DeLisi, Beaver, Perron, & Howard, 2010), and compromises their classroom concentration and academic achievement (Boulton, Trueman, & Murray, 2008; Buhs, Ladd, & Herald, 2006). Bullying also disrupts the smooth running of schools (Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996), and perpetrators are at elevated risk for psychiatric disorders (Kazdin and Weisz, 2003) and continuation of aggression beyond childhood (Olweus, 1993). Prompted by this evidence, a growing number of anti-bullying interventions have been developed (Samara & Smith, 2008). Evaluation studies report some but limited success (Frey, Edstrom, & Hirschstein, 2005; Samples, 2004; Smith, Pepler, & Rigby, 2004; Smith & Shu, 2002) and meta-analyses show no initiative has got close to eradicating bullying in schools (Merrell, Gueldner, Ross, & Isava, 2008; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). While it is important to recognize that bullying is not a disorder, DSM-V sees it as contributing to the diagnosis of conduct disorder, along with frequent or violent aggressive behavior more generally, and it has been found to be associated with the latter in an epidemiological study (Vaughn, Fu, Bender, DeLisi, Beaver, Perron, & Howard, 2010). Thus, in the review that follows we utilize research on conduct disorder where there is little direct evidence for bullying per se.

It is vital that teachers are included in studies seeking to understand and prevent bullying (Bauman, Rigby & Hoppa, 2008; Kochenderfer-Ladd, & Pelletier, 2008), not least because they may be ineffective in dealing with it (Fekkes, Pijpers, & Verloove-Vanhorick, 2005; Newman, & Murray, 2005; Rigby & Barnes, 2002; Smith & Shu, 2002). Lack of training has been implicated (Bauman et al, 2008). Studies have solicited teachers’ views, including their beliefs about bullying and how pupils may avoid it (Craig, Henderson, & Murphy, 2000; Troop & Ladd, 2002), perceived ability to cope (Boulton, 1997), perceptions of ‘what works’ (Dake, Price, Telljohann, & Funk, 2003), and typical patterns of dealing with incidents (Bauman, & Del Rio, 2006; Bauman et al, 2008; Boulton, Hardcastle, Down, Fowles, & Simmonds, in press; Dake et al, 2003).

Bullying has a complex etiology (Marsh, Parada, Craven, & Finger, 2004) and it takes many different forms (direct physical, verbal and psychological assaults through to indirect attacks via electronic media). Roles other than perpetrator and victim, such as supporters and onlookers, add to this complexity (Kärnä, Poskiparta, & Salmivalli, 2010). It is unsurprising, then, that often teachers feel confused, are unsure of what to do and act ineffectively (Gerber & Solari, 2005).

Available evidence suggests that cognitive-behavioral interventions (i.e., based on cognitive-behavioral therapy or its derivatives, denoted by ‘C-B approaches’ henceforward) are used relatively infrequently (Bauman et al, 2008; Samara, & Smith, 2008; Smith, Pepler, & Rigby, 2004; Smith, Smith, Osborn, & Samara, 2008; Ttofi & Farrnington, 2011). Put simply, C-B approaches focus on changing internal thinking and affective processes as a way to influence actual behavior, and build on the seminal work of Beck (1976) and Meichenbaum (1977) amongst others. They have figured quite prominently in efforts to ameliorate conduct disorders (Apsche & Bass, 2006; Gerber & Solari, 2005; Ghafoori & Tracz, 2004). The Metropolitan Area Child Study Research Group (MACS, 2002, 2007) intervention targets the social cognitions of aggressive responses to provocations, aggressive fantasy, and normative beliefs that support aggression. Teachers lead 40 focused one-hour lessons over a 2-year period. The Coping Power Program (Lochman, Boxmeyer, Powell, Qu, Wells, & Windle, 2009; Lochman & Wells, 2003) involves 34 structured sessions that teach young people thinking skills, such as dealing with provocations and anger, and identifying more socially acceptable responses. Aggression Replacement Training (Goldstein, Glick, & Gibbs, 1998) incorporates three elements; Skillstreaming that aims to build pro-social skills, Anger Control Training that helps youth moderate their ‘hot’ emotional responses, and Moral Reasoning Training that orients them towards socially acceptable moral codes and beliefs. It is typically delivered in a 10-week block. Evaluations of these programs have indicated moderate benefits, in line with those from Ozabaci’s (2011) review.

C-B approaches are not central to the well-known Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (Olweus & Limber, 2010). But given their wider, and to some extent successful, application to tackling other forms of aggression and to conduct disorder per se (Ozabaci, 2011), it is reasonable to expect that C-B approaches may usefully be applied to bullying. Hence, we thought it important to look at teachers’ perceptions and use of C-B based interventions to address the latter. Moreover, teachers often fail to implement anti-bullying interventions in the way that training providers would like, and this in turn affects if and how pupils’ bullying-related attitudes and behavior change (Salmivalli, Kaukiainen, & Voeten, 2005).

A few studies have examined teachers’ perceptions and uses of many different kinds of anti-bullying approaches. Samara and Smith (2008) collected data from 148 schools (presumably one member of staff responded per school) about their level of satisfaction with some 27 different anti-bullying interventions and found almost all were ‘moderate’. Naylor and Cowie (1999) asked teachers what they thought would be the benefits of peer support in tackling bullying, and found that many regarded it as communicating a caring ethos. However, neither of these studies tested if satisfaction was associated with actual or reported usage, and the questions asked were rather vague. Moreover, it seems that C-B approaches have been relatively neglected in this regard; it was not included in Samara and Smith’s (2008) extensive list of 27 different anti-bullying interventions that they studied. Hence, the initial aim of the current study was to provide the first detailed information on this issue. Specifically, Aim 1 was to assess: (a) teachers’ perceived effectiveness beliefs concerning the use of C-B approaches to peer bullying (‘perceived effectiveness’ henceforward), their self-efficacy beliefs for using them (‘self-efficacy’ henceforward), and their reported use of them (‘usage’ henceforward); (b) the effects of attending a training workshop on a specific C-B approach (I DECIDE) on those two kinds of beliefs (regardless of duration); and (c) the effects of the duration of the I DECIDE training on those beliefs.

While furthering our understanding of teachers’ beliefs is clearly important, Gerber and Solari (2005) have made it clear that more needs to be done to understand why teachers do or do not actually utilize C-B approaches to tackle unacceptable behavior, including bullying. Hence, we investigated this broad issue. The rationale for our more specific hypotheses and research questions will now be provided.

Teachers’ Self-efficacy Beliefs, Perceived Effectiveness of Anti-bullying Approaches and Training

In a recent review, Han and Weiss (2005) identified factors that influence teachers’ take up and use of interventions targeted at pupils’ behavioral and emotional functioning. It showed that teachers’ self-efficacy, perceived effectiveness beliefs and level and type of training all played an important role. Below, we relate each of these factors in more detail to our current study.

Teachers’ professional practices are influenced by their self-efficacy beliefs (Emmer & Hickman, 1991; Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Han & Weiss, 2005; Wertheim & Leyser, 2002). Conflicting results have been reported in the context of anti-bullying; some evidence suggests teachers generally have a high level of self-efficacy for anti-bullying action (Bradshaw, Sawyer, & O’Brennan, 2007) but other evidence suggests the opposite (Beran, 2005). Novick and Isaac (2010) found that teachers’ feelings of preparedness to address bullying influenced their reports of what they would do if they encountered it. Bradshaw et al (2007) found that teachers with highest self-efficacy beliefs reported higher levels of intervening in actual episodes but the data were limited by a cross-sectional design and the reports were of anticipated rather than actual behavior. Self-efficacy was assessed with a single item, "I have effective strategies for handling a bullying situation.” While extant studies are important, none has looked at teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs concerning C-B approaches to bullying per se, and Bauman et al (2008) recently called for studies of what teachers actually do that can be linked longitudinally with their beliefs. Again data are lacking and we aimed to fill this gap.

What teachers believe will be effective in addressing bullying have also been linked to their reports of what they actually do (Dake et al, 2003; Gerber & Solari, 2005). This resonates with Outcome-Expectancy theory (Hall, Herzberger & Skowronski, 1998; Williams, Anderson & Winett, 2005) that itself is founded upon the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), (Ajzen, 1991, 2002). These theories suggests that behavioral, normative and control beliefs collectively influence an individual’s intention to perform a given behavior. Within the behavioral beliefs component of the TPB are outcome expectancies, beliefs that a particular outcome will follow certain behavior. Thus, teachers who have high perceived effectiveness beliefs concerning C-B approaches should be more likely to actually implement them.

Anti-bullying training is also important. After training, teachers were significantly less likely to ignore bullying (Bauman et al, 2008) and enacted more proactive anti-bullying work in class (Dake et al, 2003). Training in C-B based approaches to conduct disorders (i.e., not bullying per se) has also been shown to affect amount and quality of use of those approaches (Lochman, Boxmeyer, Powell, Qu, Wells, & Windle, 2009; Packenham, Shute, & Reid, 2004; Sasso, Reimers, Cooper, Wacker, & Berg, 1992). This evidence sits well with theories of how and why practitioners take up and use ‘novel’ interventions since these theories stress the need for them to receive an appropriate level of training (Mihalic, 2004; Rogers, 2003). The present study extends this work by examining the effects of the amount of training on teachers’ use of a specific C-B approach to anti-bullying. That it is important to do so is suggested by work that has shown that attendance at training workshops can have demonstrable effects on community-based practitioners’ beliefs about and use of specific approaches to tacking other kinds of emotional and behavioral problems, i.e. not bullying per se (Lim, Nakamura, Higa-McMillan, Shimabukuro, & Slavin, 2012). Moreover, while there is a growing awareness of the need to consider how interventions are taken up in community settings (Lim et al, 2012), what levels of training are required is a relatively new topic of enquiry (Han & Weiss, 2005; Lochman, Boxmeyer, Powell, Qu, Wells, & Windle, 2009). Hence, our data should facilitate the understanding of how to achieve a wider use of C-B approaches to bullying by teachers in schools.

Building on the aforementioned research, the present study also addressed the following aims that have so far not been reported in the literature:

2. To test if teachers’ reported use of a specific C-B approach (I DECIDE) across an eight-month period could be predicted from their self-efficacy and perceived effectiveness of C-B approaches, and the duration of the I DECIDE training they received. The durations we tested corresponded with the typical pattern of in-service training received by teachers and other community-based practitioners that takes the form of workshops (Lim et al, 2012).

3. To test if the association between duration of the I DECIDE training teachers received and their reported use of it eight months later (if found) was mediated by their self-efficacy and/or perceived effectiveness of C-B approaches. That these are viable mediators is supported by the generic underpinning theoretical principle of C-B approaches, namely that these kinds of cognitions mediate between personal experiences and actual behavior (Beck, 1976; Meichenbaum, 1977).

Other Reasons Why Teachers Do or Do Not Use C-B Anti-bullying Approaches

Despite the aforementioned direct and indirect evidence that supports the use of C-B approaches to tackle behavior disorders and bullying per se, it remains the case that they are under-used relative to other approaches (Lewis, Hudson, Richter, & Johnson, 2004; Samara & Smith, 2008). Gerber and Solari (2005, p.294) noted that by understanding why, we can make progress in increasing the application of (C-B approaches). To the best of our knowledge, no study to date has actually asked teachers why they do or do not use C-B anti-bullying approaches. Gerber and Solari (2005) presented a number of possible reasons including the notion that such approaches are fairly complex and challenging, and hence teachers may not see it as part of their role to implement them (Gerber & Solari, 2005). Hence, the fourth and final aim of the current study was to identify common reasons why teachers who have received training in the I DECIDE program went on to report using it frequently versus infrequently in their everyday practice.