Bullying is a subset of aggressive behaviour that is characterised by three features: intention to cause harm, repetitiveness, and an imbalance of power between the perpetrator of the aggression and his or her victim (Olweus, 2010). This definition is widely accepted and widely used in academic research on bullying (Cornell & Bandyopadhyay, 2010), but lacks empirical evidence of construct validity (Finkelhor, Turner, & Hamby, 2012). This dissertation explores the construct validity of bullying in two ways. The first study examines the validity of the definition of bullying in terms of its ability to predict student functioning and identify a distinct group. The second study examines the validity of a widely used bullying measurement strategy in terms of its ability to identify aggression that meets the definition of bullying. Marginal evidence for the construct validity of bullying as currently measured and defined was found. While the characteristics of bullying do predict several measures of functioning above and beyond the presence of generic aggression or victimization, the differences predicted appear to be differences of magnitude only. This indicates that bullying may be related to more severe, but not unique, outcomes. In addition, the individual characteristics of bullying contained within the overall definition (repetition, intention to harm, power imbalance) are shown to be highly related and better thought of indicators that bullying has occurred rather than additive constructs that define a certain subclass of aggressive behaviour. Finally, regarding measurement, the results of this study show that peer-report responses using definitional measurement strategies are not strongly related to the definitional criteria of bullying. Implications for the field of bullying research are discussed. Theoretically informed empirical work on clarifying the bullying construct is identified as a research priority.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/32597 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | McGugan, Margaret Jane |
| Contributors | Santor, Darcy |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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