Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ej 1276291
Ej 1276291
www.um.edu.mt/ijee
Thematic Paper
Practitioners’ perceptions, attitudes, and challenges around bullying
and cyberbullying
1
Muthanna Samara a, Bruna Da Silva Nascimentob, Aiman El Asama, Peter Smithc, Sara
Hammudaa, Hisham Morsid and Hamda Al-Muhannadie
aKingston University London, UK
bBrunel University London, UK
cGoldsmiths College, University of London, UK
dQuality of Life Unit, NCCCR, HMC, Doha, Qatar
eBehavioural Healthcare Centre, Doha, Qatar
Practitioners’ perceptions and understanding of bullying in schools is vital and can help
to tackle bullying. The aim of this study is to investigate perceptions, attitudes, and
challenges towards bullying amongst 135 practitioners (psychologists, social-workers,
and medical professionals) (56.9% women; mostly aged 26-50 years) in Qatar. The
practitioners answered self-report questionnaires on the definition, causes, and
consequences of bullying as well as the presence of bullying and anti-bullying policies at
their workplace. The findings revealed that practitioners have a clear understanding of
the definition, causes, and consequences of bullying and recognise bullying and
cyberbullying as a problem in Qatari students. Higher bullying knowledge and experience
were related to higher perception of bullying as a problematic behaviour, better
identification of bullying characteristics, more support of anti-bullying laws, and more
bullying guidelines in their workplace. There is a great need for practitioner training in
issues concerning bullying and to design suitable anti-bullying policies and interventions
in schools.
Keywords: bullying, cyberbullying, schools, practitioners, intervention,
psychopathology, law.
First submission 8th November 2020; Accepted for publication 26th November 2020.
1
Corresponding author. Email address: m.samara@kingston.ac.uk
Method
Participants
A hundred and thirty-five practitioners that work with children as part of their practice in Qatar took part in
this study. Most participants were female (56.9%; 5 did not indicate their gender); their age categories were
18-25 years: 3.8%; 26-30 years: 22.3%; 31-35 years: 21.5%; 36-40 years: 23.8%; 41-45 years: 13.8%; 46-50
years: 9.2%; >50 years: 5.4%. Most (81.7%) were of non-Qatari nationality: Egyptian (40.7%), British (9.6%),
Jordanian (8.1%), Syrian (4.4%), and from other nationalities (e.g., Saudi Arabian, Tunisian, Indian, etc.
37.2%). Participants were psychologists (39.3%), social-workers (36.3%), medical professionals (8.9%),
education professionals (11.1%), management professionals (1.5%) and 4 participants did not report their
profession (3%). Most worked in schools (84%), others in hospitals (12.2%), mental health institutions (2.3%),
charities (0.8%) and private clinics working directly with children (0.8%). Years of experience were reported
Materials
Bullying scenarios. Nine different scenarios were designed to measure whether practitioners differentiated
between bullying and cyberbullying behaviours and random aggressive acts (which did not involve criteria for
bullying such as repetition and power imbalance). There were 5 bullying and/or cyberbullying scenarios: e.g.,
“a girl receives abusive messages on Facebook on a daily basis from her friends”, and 4 aggressive but non-
bullying scenarios: e.g., “a boy reported that he was verbally abused once by a group of children because he
did not play with them”, Participants were required to judge whether each scenario referred to face to face
bullying (1), cyberbullying (2), or neither (3). Correct items (1) and incorrect items (0) were added up together
to create a general score of how accurate practitioners’ perceptions of bullying was.
Definition of bullying. This questionnaire listed 11 potential bullying characteristics regarding the
definition of bullying (6 items, e.g., “it involves an intention to harm”) and the setting in which bullying may
occur (5 items; e.g. “happens at home only”). Participants were required to judge whether each item was correct
(1) or incorrect (0) and were added up to create a general score of how accurate practitioners’ knowledge of
bullying was.
Attitudes towards bullying. This section consisted of 17 items that measured participants’ perception
of bullying as a normal behaviour among children (11 items, e.g., “bullying is a normal behaviour among
children and adolescents”) (McDonald's ω = .70) or bullying as a problem that needs attention (6 items, e.g.,
“I am concerned about bullying among children”) (McDonald's ω = .45). Participants stated their agreement
with each item in relation to bullying and cyberbullying, using a five-point scale of response (1 = Strongly
disagree; 5 = Strongly agree).
Causes, consequences and characteristics of bullying. A list of 9 potential causes of bullying and
cyberbullying (e.g., disability, physical looks) (Table II), nine potential characteristics of bullies (e.g., has
emotional problems, has little empathy) (Table II), and ten items describing potential consequences of bullying
and victimisation (e.g., depression symptoms, low confidence) (Table III) were presented. Participants stated
their agreement with each item, using a five-point scale of response (1 = Strongly disagree; 5 = Strongly agree)
and the scales represented participants’ perceptions of the causes and consequences of bullying.
Perception of laws on bullying and cyberbullying. Seven items were used to measure knowledge of
anti-bullying laws including attitudes in support (3 items; e.g., bullying should be made illegal) (bullying:
McDonald's ω = .46; cyberbullying: McDonald's ω = .52) and attitudes against (5 items; e.g., it is immoral to
prosecute children for bullying) (bullying: McDonald's ω = .39; cyberbullying: McDonald's ω = .31) bullying
laws. Participants stated their agreement with each item, using a five-point scale of response (1 = Strongly
disagree; 5 = Strongly agree).
Validity of Measurements
Four academics in the field of bullying and psychopathology carefully assessed the measures used and their
relevance to the main aims and objectives of the study. The questionnaire achieved face and content validity
after carefully addressing cultural sensitivities, and minor language and design concerns. Furthermore,
convergent validity was calculated using Pearson’s r correlations coefficients between each single item and
the total score for each scale and subscale of the above measures. Each correlation coefficient was compared
to the Pearson’s correlation critical values for two-tail tests (p<0.05) according to the degrees of freedom (N-
2). All correlations coefficients were greater than the critical value from the table, thus the null hypothesis that
there is no correlation was rejected indicating high correlations between each item and the total score and high
convergent validity for each measure.
Questionnaires were initially developed in English and then were translated to Arabic and back
translated to English for comparability.
Data Analysis
The analyses were performed using SPSS version 26. Some items in some scales were recoded to indicate
positive or negative score accordingly. ANOVAs were used to compare differences in practitioners’
knowledge, perceptions and experience with bullying and cyberbullying according to professional roles. All
interval variables were judged as normally distributed according to Kurtosis and Skewness statistics (within
the range of ±2). Therefore, ANOVA was deemed as an appropriate test, which is also robust to normality
violations (Blanca et al., 2017). We did not include management (N=2) or uncategorised (N=4) professionals
in the ANOVA but were included in the correlation analysis. Dependent t-tests were carried out to compare
participants’ perceptions of bullying consequences and to compare their perceptions of bullying as a normal
or problematic behaviour. Correlation analysis was carried out between practitioners’ knowledge, experience
and attitudes towards bullying and perception of anti-bullying laws.
Results
Practitioners’ experiences and perceptions of bullying
Bullying scenarios. The mean of correct answers out of nine scenarios was moderate. Practitioners were better
at identifying the bullying scenarios correctly (out of 5 scenarios), than the non-bullying scenarios (out of 4
scenarios; Table I). An ANOVA indicated no differences between roles, F(3,119)=0.48, p=0.69.
Bullying definition and characteristics. Most practitioners were able to correctly identify the main
characteristics of bullying. They most accurately identified the definition of bullying and the settings where
bullying occurs (Table I). An ANOVA indicated no differences between roles, F(3,117)=0.35, p=0.78.
Support bullying laws‡ 3.56(0.74) 3.61(0.63) 3.49(0.62) 3.62(0.55) 3.17(0.24) 3.44(0.19) 3.58(0.64)
Against bullying laws‡ 2.97(0.75) 2.91(0.63) 2.95(0.59) 3.10(0.72) 2.75(0.00) 3.33(0.52) 2.97(0.68)
Support cyberbullying laws‡ 3.58(0.64) 3.69(0.78) 3.30(0.60) 3.42(0.45) 3.17(0.23) 4.00(0.94) 3.58(0.67)
Against cyberbullying laws‡ 2.81(0.75) 2.62(0.57) 2.91(0.55) 3.29(0.63) 2.50(0.70) 2.63(0.17) 2.80(0.67)
*The total for correct answers (0-9) combining the bullying (0-4) and non-bullying scenarios (0-5).
†Total score for correct answers (0-11) combined the definition (0-6) and setting items (0-5).
‡Mean of 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree).
Practitioners direct experience with bullying. Most participants reported that they deal with face-to-
face bullying at least once a week (36.4%; 2-4-times-a-week: 34.1%; 5-7-times-a-week: 8.3%; more than 10-
times-a-week 7.6%), while only 8.3% and 5.3% stated that they never dealt with bullying cases or dealt with
it less than once a week respectively. On the other hand, 31.6% of practitioners had to deal with cyberbullying
cases once a week (2-4-times-a-week: 19.5%; 5-7-times-a-week: 6.8%; 8-10-times-a-week: 0.8%; more than
10-times-a-week: 2.3%), while 36.1% and 3% stated that they never dealt with cyberbullying cases or dealt
with it less than once a week respectively. Participants in the educational profession were significantly more
likely to deal with face-to-face bullying (M = 3.20, SD = 1.74) than medical professionals (M = 2.08, SD =
1.68) (p < .05).
Table V. Correlations between different factors in relation to practitioners’ knowledge, perceptions and
experiences.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1. Characteristics of
bullying
2. Total bullying
.10
scenarios
3. Bullying as normal -.25** -.29**
4. Bullying as
.11 -.04 .03
problematic
5. Cyberbullying as
-.33** -.31** .53** .05
normal
6. Cyberbullying as
-.18* .11 -.06 .43** .01
problematic
7. Support bullying
.09 .10 -.19* -.05 -.24* -.05
laws
8. Against bullying
-.03 -.12 .15 .02 .06 -.01 .01
laws
9. Support
.08 .02 -.24* .18* -.09 .02 .67** -.02
cyberbullying laws
10. Against
-.07 -.01 .22* -.18* .05 -.10 .11 .77** .07
cyberbullying laws
11. Bullying
.22* .15* -.26** .18* -.21** .01 .22* -.14 .18* -.19*
knowledge
12. Bullying
.23** .14 -.08 -.03 -.10 -.15 .12 -.14 .19* -.09 .54**
experience
13. Cyberbullying
.34** .10 -.15 .18* -.14 -.03 .18* -.12 .12 -.10 .90** .61**
knowledge
14. Cyberbullying
.04 .06 .04 -.02 -.11 -.15 .11 -.06 .15 -.01 .50** .76** .57**
experience
15. Direct experience
.11 .01 -.13 .24** -.04 .20* -.02 .09 .11 .07 .28** .16* .25* .18*
with bullying
16. School bullying
-.03 .12 -.02 -.23* -.14 -.05 .20* .07 .12 .09 .32** .47** .29** .41** .01
guidelines
Note. **p < 0.01, p < 0.05
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), National Priority Research
Programmes (NPRP5 - 1134 - 3 - 240) for their support and the participants who took part in the study.
Endnotes
i
UNESCO recommendations: https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/dayagainstschoolviolenceandbullying.
In this study, this term will be used to refer to all professionals directly working with children and
ii