Soc Psychol Educ (2010) 13:57–76

DOI 10.1007/s11218-009-9098-y

The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire:

testing for measurement equivalence and latent mean
differences in bullying between gender in Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and the USA

Mohamed Habashy Hussein

Received: 2 October 2008 / Accepted: 2 June 2009 / Published online: 15 July 2009
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire (PIPSQ) was

developed to assess individuals’ levels of bullying and victimization. This study used
the approach of latent means analysis (LMA) within the framework of structural equa-
tion modeling (SEM) to explore the factor structure and gender differences associated
with the PIPSQ in a sample of Egyptian (N = 361), Saudi Arabian (N = 350) and
USA (270) children. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis are consistent with pre-
vious work and support the cross-cultural validity of the PIPSQ factor structure. The
PIPSQ factor loadings were invariant across Egyptian and Saudi samples, whereas
only partial invariance was met between Egyptian or Saudi samples and the USA
sample. Full measurement invariance was met between gender within the three cul-
tures, that is the PIPSQ was useful to compare bullying and victims between gender
within the three cultures, but it is only valid to compare those two constructs between
Egyptian and Saudi boys and girls. The results indicated that Egyptian and Saudi
boys/girls had a higher level of bullying than American boys/girls, whereas no dif-
ferences were displayed among the three cultures on the victimization subscale. Boys
had a higher level of bullying than girls in the three cultures, and boys and girls had a
similar level of victimization in three cultures.

Keywords The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire · Measurement

invariance · Measurement equivalence · Confirmatory factor analysis · Bullying ·
Victimization · Gender · Egypt · Saudi Arabia · USA

M. H. Hussein (B)
Educational Psychology Department, King Khaled University, BO 157, Abha 61411, Saudi Arabia
e-mail: mhhussain@kku.edu.sa

123
58 M. H. Hussein

1 Introduction

Globalization has brought cultures into contact and conflict, sparking a flurry of
research on the role of cultural values in shaping behavior. Of the cultural values
identified, bullying and victimization have recently received the most attention in
cross-cultural research. In recent years, the subject of bullying and victimization in
schools has become a topic of considerable public concern in a number of coun-
tries. But how universal are such experiences of bullying and victimization? There are
strong indications that bullying is a problem in many countries of the world (Smith
et al. 1999). Data have accumulated from a lot of European countries such as Bosnia
and Herzegovina (Obrdalj and Rumboldt 2008), Finland (Kumpulainen and Rasanen
2000; Klomek et al. 2008), Greece (Pateraki and Houndoumadi 2001), Italy (Gini
2004), Norway (Hansen et al. 2008; Olweus 1994), Spain (Barrio et al. 2008), Swe-
den (Holmberg and Hjern 2008) and the UK (Glover et al. 2000). There have also
been reports from Australia (Rigby et al. 1991), Canada (Bentley and Li 1995), India
(Khatri and Kupersmidt 2003), Japan (Crystal 1994), the USA (Berthold and Hoover
2000) and Zambia (Nabuzoka 2003).
Research on bullying began in Europe in the 1970s, led by Dan Olweus (2003),
who continues to be the foremost international authority on bullying. To date, almost
all research on bullying done internationally and in the United States has focused
on bullying in elementary school, middle school, and high school. A review of this
research shows that bullying and victimization is most common in elementary school
and becomes progressively less common by the end of high school (Nansel et al.
2001), with rates of bullied students decreasing from 14% of American 6th graders
to only 2% of the 12th graders (DeVoe et al. 2004). In primary schools between 20%
and 30% of the children are victims of bullying, while between 10% and 20% of the
children are bullies (Smith et al. 1999), both in Western and non-Western countries
(Eslea et al. 2003).
Several studies compared the prevalence rates of bullying and victimization among
students across gender (e.g., Gropper and Froschl 2000; Scheithauer et al. 2006; Seals
and Young 2003) and two or more cultures or subcultures (e.g., Cerezo and Ato 2005;
Green 2007; Nesdale and Naito 2005; Smith et al. 2002; Smorti et al. 2003; Wolke
et al. 2001).
The review of this literature revealed two limitations: First, all these studies used a
translated version of an English measure assuming that the measure performs equally
well across those cultures. To my knowledge, this assumption never was tested in any
one of those studies, except that conducted by Green (2007). Second, although while
bullying in schools and the possible ways of dealing with the problem have generated
a lot of attention in largely Western countries, comparative data from other cultures,
particularly Arab countries, is rather scarce at this moment.
In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, many school problems associated with bullying and
victimization have been recognized but not discussed formally, and the discussion
on school bullying is generally considered within the broader framework of student
violence (Albheary 2005). The phenomenon of bullying and victimization has not
been previously treated as a major issue in Egyptian and Saudi Arabia schools, and no
previous studies have examined this phenomenon. It was the rapid escalation of crime

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 59

in general and among children in particular, that has, over the past few years, drawn
attention to violence at school. In recent years, growing attention has been given by
the Ministry of Education and media to school-based crimes, such as attacking and
threatening other students both inside and outside the schools. The topic of bullying
has just started to receive attention among academics.
A necessary assumption when comparing two or more sociocultural groups using
multi-item instruments designed to assess individual differences in some underlying
construct of interest is that the items quantifying the construct function in the same
way across samples from different cultures. This property of an instrument is referred
to as measurement equivalence. Measurement equivalence (ME) exists when items
measuring a given construct are perceived and interpreted in the same way, and the
response scale is used in the same way, across different samples. If the assumption
of measurement equivalence is not met, observed differences between cultural groups
are incommensurable. In particular, tests of significance comparing differences in
observed item and scale means can be misleading. Observed scores for the groups
may differ significantly, not due to differences in the underlying construct, but due
to group differences in the plethora of other variables influencing the individual’s
responses.
Tarshis and Huffman (2007) developed the Peer Interaction in Primary School
Questionnaire (PIPSQ). In the first presentation of the scale, Tarshis and Huffman
(2007) showed that a two-factor model represented the relations among the items
well. Tarshis and Huffman (2007) mentioned their concerns for a need for testing
the questionnaire with non-US populations. Bullying and victimization are global
issues, and thus any instrument should be translated into other languages and undergo
psychometric testing.
The current study has two main objectives: First, it aims to investigate the psy-
chometric properties of PIPSQ across three different cultures (Egypt, Saudi Arabia
and USA) to ensure that PIPSQ psychometrically functions in the same way for these
diverse cultures. Second, it aims to test the differences in bullying and victimiza-
tion among boys/girls across the three cultures and across boys and girls within each
culture.

2 Background

2.1 Assessment of bullying and victimization

Olweus (2003) states that: “a student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is
exposed repeatedly and over time to negative actions on the part of one or more other
students.” In the study of Craig and Pepler (2007) bullying is described as involving the
conscious desire to hurt or threaten or frighten someone else or the use of aggression
with the intention of hurting another person.
A student who is a repeated target of another student’s coercive behavior becomes
a victim of bullying (Olweus 1994). Coercive behaviors can be physical, such as hit-
ting, pushing, holding, and hostile gesturing; verbal, such as threatening, humiliating,
degrading, teasing, name-calling, and taunting; psychological, such as staring, sticking

123
60 M. H. Hussein

out the tongue, eye-rolling, and ignoring; and social, such as manipulating friendships
and ostracizing (Clarke and Kiselica 1997).
In order to examine bullying and victimization as a stable individual disposition,
several methods have been suggested to measure bullying and victimization. These
methods include: self-report, peer nominations, teacher nominations, and behavioral
observations. Self-report is often the preferred method of assessment for research pur-
poses and for school personnel to gather information about bullying in their school.
Olweus (1983) developed Olweus’s Bully/Victim Questionnaire (OBVQ) that was
designed to assess bully/victim problems in schools. This instrument begins with a
definition of bullying and investigates the frequency and types of bullying, the loca-
tion where the bullying takes place, who does the bullying, how often children report
bullying to teachers or their family, and, if the teacher intervenes, what he or she does
to stop the bullying. Pellegrini et al. (1999) reported strong psychometric properties
for the OBVQ, which are moderately correlated with peer nomination (Ross 1996)
and is one of the best methods for establishing the incidence of bullying with children
who are middle-school age and older (Austin and Joseph 1996).
Neary and Joseph (1994) developed the Peer-Victimization Scale (PVS) that could
be embedded in Harter’s (1985) SPPC for the purposes of reducing the distinction of
the items. The PVS contains six forced-choice items, three of which represent physical
victimization and three of which refer to verbal victimization. The six-item PVS was
found to discriminate between bullied and nonbullied children as determined through
self-report and peer reports, correlated satisfactorily with self-report measures and
peer measures, and, in a later study, was found to have satisfactory internal consis-
tency reliability (Austin and Joseph 1996).
The Name Calling Survey (Embry 1995) can be used to measure the extent to which
children experience being called names. The instrument was originally developed and
administered to students in the first through sixth grades at a public school in northern
Alabama. The final version of the NCS includes 35 statements that ask children about
names they have been called in school, to which they answer yes or no. Higher scores
indicate being called names more often. Embry (1995) reported moderate to high
internal consistency reliability levels for this instrument. Content validity was estab-
lished by a review of the instrument that was done by practicing school counselors
and counselor educators.
Austin and Joseph (1996) developed the Bullying-Behavior Scale (BBC) to subtly
assess direct bully/victim problems at school by embedding it within the Harter’s Self-
Perception Profile for Children. The BBC consists of six forced-choice items, three
representations of negative physical actions and three depictions of negative verbal
actions. Internal consistency reliability of the BBC was satisfactory, and boys were
found to score higher than girls on this measure, suggesting that analyses should be
conducted separately for boys and girls. This instrument does not measure relational
victimization, which is a weakness of the measure. However, we believe that the Social
Acceptance subscale of the SPPC can indirectly assess this domain. No validity data
are reported for the BBC. Hence, further research is necessary, particularly in regard
to this instrument’s concurrent validity with self, peer, and teacher reports.
The School Life Survey (Chan 2002) consists of a Bullying Scale and a Victimiza-
tion Scale, each of which contains differentiated items for measuring the three types

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 61

of bullying and victimization: Physical, Verbal and Relational. The Bullying Scale has
nine items, while the Victimization Scale has 15 items. The items in each scale are
totaled to give an overall score of bullying or victimization, respectively. The School
Life Survey was designed to study whole-school situations of bullying and victim-
ization. It is non-anonymous and requires the respondents to write down the name(s)
of the perpetrator(s) for each of the behavioral statements that s/he endorses on the
SLS Victimization Scale. The respondents on the School Life Survey did not actually
have to state whether s/he was bullied. The terms ‘bully’ and ‘victim’ were not used
to describe the situations on the SLS Victimization Scale. They were only asked to
indicate whether any of the situations depicted on the scale happened to him/her, and
who was responsible for each of the stated situations.
The Peer Interactions in Primary School Questionnaire (PIPSQ) was developed by
Tarshis and Huffman (2007) to gather comprehensive information on both direct and
indirect bullying and victimization and to function as a self-report measure that could
be administered to children at a third-grade reading level in either English or Spanish.
The questionnaire was designed to have multiple questions on both direct and indirect
bullying and victimization and to allow the creation of scales.
The Peer Interactions in Primary School Questionnaire (PIPSQ) is a self-admin-
istered survey designed to collect information on both bullying and victimization in
school age children. The PIPSQ was designed for a third-grade reading level, as mea-
sured by the Flesch-Kincaid standard. As bullying and victimization have expanded to
include more than physical violence, questions were designed to explore both direct
(e.g., specific threats, bodily harm) and indirect (e.g., exclusion, spreading rumors)
bullying based on the author’s review of literature and target audience. Preliminary
questions were tested on several third-grade students to assess comprehensibility,
clarity, and face validity; changes were made to the questions as indicated.

2.2 Gender differences in bullying and victimization

Previous research suggests that bullying is more common among males than females.
However, numerous studies have found no gender differences, and some suggest that
results may be influenced by gender role stereotypes and how aggression itself is
measured. Nonetheless, the general trends in male and female bullying behaviors are
reasonably well supported. As such, we expect that males will bully and be victimized
more than females.
More recent research challenges these general beliefs surrounding the gender of
bullies. The literature confirms that boys are more likely than girls to be involved
in direct physical bullying (Natvig et al. 2001) and that boys and girls are equally
involved in direct verbal bullying (Baldry and Farrington 2000). However, the latest
research on the gender of school bullies suggests that there is little consensus regarding
the gender of perpetrators of indirect bullying such as social exclusion and subject of
rumors (Nansel et al. 2001).
Similarly, studies investigating the gender of victims of bullying have yielded the
same contradictory results. Some researchers reported that girls and boys were equally
harassed regarding severity and prevalence (Lerner and Lerner 2001), while others

123
62 M. H. Hussein

have found that boys are victims of more direct forms of bullying and girls were more
likely to be victims of indirect or relational bullying (Van der Wal et al. 2003).
These contradictory conclusions found in studies relating to the gender of bullies
as well as bully victims, means that, up until recently, researchers have been unable to
generalize research results. This limited the extent to which findings of studies could
be compared to one another, hampering the task of addressing and preventing bullying
globally. One explanation for these incoherent results among studies may be the fact
that the schools used to obtain sample groups from, did not have the same demographic
make up in terms of gender.

3 Research hypotheses

The hypotheses tested were: (a) that the configural invariance of the PIPSQ scores
would be supported, implying that across the groups (the three cultures and the two
genders) the same constructs would be associated with the same set of items or, put
differently, that in both groups the data would decompose into the same number of
factors; (b) that the metric invariance would be supported, implying that the strength of
the relations between each item and its associated factor are equivalent across groups
or, in other words, that the constructs would be manifested in the same way across
the samples; (c) that scalar equivalence would be supported, implying that the scale
items have the same operational definition across groups (i.e., have the same inter-
vals and zero points); and (d) latent mean differences of bullying and victim were
not statistically significant between any two cultures for the same gender; (e) latent
mean differences of bullying between boys and girls within each culture separately
were statistically significant in favor of boys; and (f) latent mean differences of victim
between boys and girls within each culture separately were not statistically significant.

4 Method

4.1 Participants

American sample: A total of 270 (145 boys and 125 girls) students were divided into 95
students in fourth through sixth grades from two elementary schools in California and
175 students in third and fourth grades in Arizona who participated in the study that
was conducted by Tarshis and Huffman (2007).
Egyptian sample: A total of 361 (181 boys and 180 girls) students in third to sixth
grades from four elementary schools in Alexandria, Egypt, participated in the current
study. The means and the standard deviations of the sample age were 11.16 and 1.23,
and 10.89 and 1.35 for boys and girls respectively.
Saudi Sample: A total of 350 (211 boys and 139 girls) students in third to sixth
grades from four elementary schools in Abha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, participated
in the current study. The mean and the standard deviation of the sample age were 11.34
and 1.44 for boys and 11.16 and 1.20 for girls.

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 63

4.2 Measure

The measure used in this study was The Peer Interactions in Primary School
Questionnaire (Tarshis and Huffman 2007). This questionnaire is a 22-item scale used
to collect information on both direct and indirect bullying and victimization (10 items
for bullying and 12 items for victimization) in schoolage children. The questionnaire
can be completed in a brief period (5–10 min), this being a practical instrument for
use in the school classroom setting. The PIPSQ was designed on a third-grade read-
ing level, as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid standard. On the PIPSQ, students select
one of three response categories for each question (never, sometimes, a lot) and then
numeric values for each response category (0, 1, and 2) are added to give a scaled
score.
Initial factor analysis revealed that two factors met the criteria to be retained via
both the scree test and Kaiser-Guttman rule. In addition, a two-factor solution was
hypothetically plausible based on our questions. The overall raw Cronbach alpha was
.90 for the questionnaire. Using the accepted cutoff of .70, all items met the criteria
to remain in the final questionnaire. The range of Cronbach’s alpha values for each
deleted item was .89 to .90; thus, no item detracted significantly from the consistency
of the questionnaire. Test-retest reliability calculations demonstrated strong reliability
for the questionnaire. For the victim scale, Spearman’s rho was .87 and the Interclass
correlation (ICC) was .88. For the Bully scale, Spearman’s rho was .76 and the ICC
was .84.

4.3 Procedure

The Peer Interactions in Primary School Questionnaire was translated by the author
from English to Arabic for administration. School authorities in Egypt and Saudi
Arabia were contacted to obtain the necessary consent for this study. These schools
were demographically similar regarding the overall population of the school, the size
of the town, and the students’ general socioeconomic status. The Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia’s culture is religious and conservative; all Saudi Arabia schools are single-
gender schools. Whereas Egyptian culture is a more liberal culture, all the primary
schools in Egypt are mixed-gender schools. The students completed the questionnaire
anonymously during regular class hours reserved for the study. It took approximately
10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Only information about age and gender was
requested, and the participants had the opportunity to give or withhold consent.

4.4 Statistical analyses

A series of multi-group confirmatory factor analyses were conducted in LISREL 8.54

(Jöreskog and Sörbom 1993) to test for all levels of measurement invariance. For each
model, maximum likelihood estimation with a Pearson product–moment covariance
matrix was used and the variance of the latent variable was set to 1.0. Up to six models
were tested for each of the three levels of invariance, beginning with the “full model”
that tested the three cultural groups by two gender groups (i.e., USA boys, USA girls,

123
64 M. H. Hussein

Egyptian boys, Egyptian girls, Saudi Arabian boys and Saudi Arabian girls). To con-
trol for the effect of gender, any two cultures were compared for the same gender (i.e.,
Egyptian boys versus Saudi boys), and to control for the effect of culture, boys and
girls were compared within each culture (that is, Egyptian boys versus Egyptian girls).
Configural invariance was evaluated by examining overall model fit. Steenkamp and
Baumgartner (1998) recommended using the following four fit indices, in addition to
the commonly used chi-square test: the root mean squared error of approximation
(RMSEA), with values less than .08 indicating acceptable fit; the Comparative Fit
Index (CFI), with values of .90 or greater indicating acceptable fit (Vandenberg and
Lance 2000); the non-normed fit index (NNFI, also called the Tucker-Lewis Index),
with values of .90 or greater indicating acceptable fit (Vandenberg and Lance 2000).
Metric and scalar invariance were tested by hierarchically nesting the models to
conduct systematic comparison tests. The degree of invariance across nested models
tends to be assessed using chi-square difference tests (
χ 2 ; a critical value of less
than .01 was used here). However, because researchers have shown that chi-square
difference tests are very sensitive to sample size, Cheung and Rensvold (2002) recom-
mended also using change in CFI (
CFI) to assess differences between nested models.
A change in CFI values between 0 and −.01 indicates model invariance. In the pres-
ent study, the
CFI test was given more weight whenever there was disagreement
between the conclusions of the
χ 2 test and the
CFI test.
The statistical analysis followed the following steps: first step was to test for con-
figural invariance, beginning with the full model. Configural invariance was met if
the items of the scale exhibited significant nonzero loadings on salient factors and
zero loadings on nonsalient factors. This model then served as a baseline model for
comparisons with more restricted models.
The second step was to test for metric invariance for the baseline model found
to exhibit configural invariance. This was tested by constraining the matrix of factor
loadings to be invariant across groups. It is possible that the strength of factor loadings
might differ between groups, revealing that the construct is manifested between the
groups differently (Cheung and Rensvold 2002). When full invariance is not satisfied,
partial invariance can be examined. When full metric invariance is not established, the
researcher can determine the source of the noninvariance by freeing, progressively, the
loadings in the baseline model for items across the groups, until a final partial metric
invariance model is obtained. This final partial metric invariance model will have only
those like items with equal loadings constrained equally across the groups. When a
few items are found to be noninvariant, meaningful cross-group comparisons can still
be performed because few items will not heavily influence such comparisons (Byrne
1994).
The third and final step was to test for scalar invariance for those models found to
exhibit metric invariance. This was tested by imposing an equality constraint on the
intercepts of the items found to have invariant factor loadings in the second step. Again
if this initial model is not supported, the source of the non-invariance can be explored,
using a similar strategy to that described for testing partial metric invariance. The final
partial scalar invariance model can be revised appropriately to test for invariance in
latent means. In general, for testing invariance for the structural model it is necessary

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 65

for at least one item (other than the one fixed to unity to define the scale of each latent
construct) to show scalar invariance (Steenkamp and Baumgartner 1998).
Byrne (1994) proposed that latent means can still be compared under partial inter-
cept invariance assuming that the latent means will not be affected by noninvariant
intercepts to a great extent. To assess the adequacy of the multisample models, the
goodness-of-fit indexes previously described were used. However, the most appropri-
ate index for multisample model comparison is the CFI because it is not influenced
by sample size and model complexity and does not correlate with overall measures of
fit (Cheung and Rensvold 2002).

5 Results

5.1 Data preparation

Comparison sets. To test whether the three culture samples had similar two-factor
structures, the three cultures were separately compared for each gender, i.e., the boys
are compared across the three cultures and girls are compared across the three cul-
tures. As previously stated, comparing the samples in this way ruled out gender as
a reason for any differences found across cultures. Tests for measurement invariance
were then duplicated across gender within each culture. Egyptian boys were compared
with Egyptian Girls. Similarly, the comparisons were replicated for USA and Saudi
Samples.
Imputation of missing values. Participants who had missed more than 20% of items
on a measure (i.e., measure not completed, missed a page, or simply missed too many
items) were excluded from the analyses. For the remaining participants, scores were
imputed for any missing data by means of the expectation maximization method,
which is one of the most effective methods for imputing missing values because it
makes use of all available data. For males in the US sample, 15 separate items were
found to have missing data, spread across 13 different people.
Descriptive and reliability Statistics. Means, standard deviations, Cronbach’s alpha
and the skewness and kurtosis values for the bullying and victimization scales for boys
and girls within each culture are provided in Table 1. Because the maximum likelihood
estimation procedures used in this study can produce distorted results when the nor-
mality assumption is severely violated (Curran et al. 1996), the normality of each scale
was investigated in terms of its kurtosis and skewness. According to the guidelines
of severe nonnormality (i.e., skew > 2; kurtosis > 7) proposed by West et al. (1995),
the normality assumption of all the variables was well met. Internal consistency was
estimated with coefficient alpha, calculated separately for each sub-scale. Alpha coef-
ficients indicated good internal consistency (alpha > 0. 70) for the bully and victim
subscales of the PIPSQ in both genders within each culture.

5.2 Cultural invariance

Three paired comparisons were conducted for each gender separately using two-con-
firmatory factor analyses; the first comparison was between the Egyptian sample and

123
66 M. H. Hussein

Table 1 The descriptive statistics and alpha coefficients of bully and victim scales by gender and culture

Egypt Saudi USA

Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls

Mean
Bully 4.91 3.53 5.57 5.24 2.59 1.55
Victim 6.44 6.02 7.39 8.96 6.54 6.94
Std
Bully 4.32 4.26 3.64 4.21 3.34 2.43
Victim 4.88 4.85 4.12 4.98 5.46 5.00
Skewness
Bully 0.93 1.28 0.42 0.83 1.41 2.32
Victim 0.89 0.95 0.50 0.58 0.81 0.4.
Kurtosis
Bully 0.37 0.75 −0.76 −0.07 1.56 6.13
Victim 0.64 0.65 0.35 0.16 −0.20 −0.58
Alpha
Bully 0.84 0.87 0.74 0.82 0.90 0.88
Victim 0.84 0.89 0.82 0.82 0.86 0.79

the Saudi sample, the second comparison was between the Egyptian sample and the
USA sample, and the last comparison was between the Saudi sample and the USA
sample.

5.2.1 Egyptian sample versus Saudi sample

Configural invariance for PIPSQ was examined by testing a two-correlated factor

model for each gender separately. The results in Table 2 indicated that the model is a
reasonably good fit for the suggested model. As shown in Table 2, the two-factor mode
fit reasonably well for boys and girls. Although χ 2 values were significant(<0.01), the
practical fit indices were higher than the cut of scores (i.e., CFI ≥ 0.90, NNFI ≥ 0.90
and RMSEA<0.10) indicating support for Configural invariance between the Egyptian
sample and the Saudi sample.
Metric invariance. As shown in Table 2, results of metric invariance suggested
that differences between the unconstrained model and the constrained model were
significant based on chi-square change (boys:
χ 2 = 41.84, df = 22, P < 0.01,
girls:
χ 2 = 73.53, df = 22, P < 0.01). However, the changes of fit indices (boys:

CFI = 0.01 and
NNFI = 0.01, girls:
CFI = 0.01 and
NNFI = 0.00) sug-
gested that the differences between the unconstrained model and constrained model
were not significant. Thereby, the results have achieved metric invariance (Cheung
and Rensvold 2002).
Scalar invariance. In the next step of the analysis the questionnaire was eval-
uated for scalar invariance by constraining the intercepts of all items to be equal

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 67

Table 2 Goodness of fit indices of cultural invariance models

χ 2 (df) CFI NNFI RMSEA

Gender Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls

Egypt versus Saudi

Configural invariance *660.63(416) 638.07(416) 0.92 0.94 0.91 0.93 0.08 0.07
Metric invariance 702.47(438) 711.66(438) 0.91 0.93 0.90 0.93 0.08 0.08
Scalar invariance 789.06(460) 804.43(460) 0.90 0.92 0.90 0.92 0.0 0.08
Egypt versus USA
Configural invariance 776.95(416) 653.29(416) 0.91 0.93 0.90 0.92 0.07 0.06
Metric invariance 900.28(438) 793.64(438) 0.88 0.91 0.87 0.91 0.10 0.08
Partial Metric invariance 801.71(431) 660.31(429) 0.91 0.93 0.90 0.92 0.07 0.06
Partial Scalar invariance 874.31(446) 777.79(442) 0.90 0.92 0.90 0.91 0.07 0.06
Saudi versus USA
Configural invariance 612.24(416) 639.51(416) 0.94 0.94 0.94 0.93 0.05 0.06
Metric invariance 706.57(438) 831.12(438) 0.92 0.88 0.92 0.87 0.06 0.08
Partial Metric invariance 640.06(432) 656.86(425) 0.94 0.93 0.94 0.93 0.05 0.06
Partial Scalar invariance 727.22(448) 708.79(434) 0.93 0.92 0.93 0.92 0.06 0.07
* All the values are significant at P < 0.01

across the two cultures (Egyptian and Saudi). As shown in Table 2, results of scalar
invariance suggested that differences between the unconstrained intercept model and
the constrained intercept model were significant based on chi-square change (boys:

χ 2 = 86.59, df = 22, P < 0.01, girls:
χ 2 = 97.83, df = 22, P < 0.01). How-
ever, the changes of fit indices (boys:
CFI = 0.01 and
NNFI = 0.00, girls:

CFI = 0.01 and
NNFI = 0.01) suggested that the differences between the uncon-
strained model and constrained model were not significant. Thereby, we have achieved
scalar invariance.

5.2.2 Egyptian sample versus USA Sample

The configural invariance for PIPSQ with no equality constraints displayed a good fit
for the data collected from Egyptian and USA boys/girls. The results indicated that the
model is a reasonably good fit for the suggested model. As shown in Table 2, the two-
factor mode fit reasonably good for boys and girls and were significant (P < 0.01),
the practical fit indices met the cut of scores (i.e., CFI ≥ 0.90, NNFI ≥ 0.90 and
RMSEA < 0.10) indicating support for configural invariance between Egyptian and
USA boys/girls.
Metric invariance. As shown in Table 2, results of metric invariance suggested that
differences between the unconstrained model and the constrained model were sig-
nificant based on chi-square change (boys:
χ 2 = 123.33, df = 22, P< 0.01, girls:

χ 2 = 140.35, df = 22, P< 0.01) and the changes of fit indices (boys:
CFI = 0.03
and
NNFI = 0.03, girls:
CFI = 0.02 and
NNFI = 0.01) were less than the cutoff
scores. This finding, as hypothesized, suggests that respondents from different cultural
samples may be using different conceptual frames of reference when responding to

123
68 M. H. Hussein

at least some items of the bullying and victim scales. Therefore, we concluded that
equivalence could not be assumed for any of the two scales across the Egyptian and
American boys or girls. Our analysis therefore proceeded to explore partial invariance
of the two scales.
Partial metric invariance. In the next step we examined invariant items across the
two cultures by freeing one parameter (a loading) and then comparing the chi-square
statistic to the model with no constrained items (Configural model). This procedure
was repeated, constraining each loading in a separate analysis. The partial metric
invariance model reasonably fit the data on the basis of chi-square changes (boys:

χ 2 = 24.76, df = 15, P > 0.01, girls:
χ 2 = 25.02, df = 13, P > 0.01) and
based on goodness of fit indices changes (boys:
CFI = 0.00 and
NNFI = 0.00,
girls:
CFI = 0.00 and
NNFI = 0.00).
For boys five out of ten items of the bullying scale were non-invariant and two out
of twelve items of the victim scale were non-invariant. On the other side, the girls’
data showed that seven out of ten items of the bullying scale were non-invariant and
two out of twelve items of the victim scale were non-invariant.
Partial scalar invariance. Because the partial metric invariance model was
supported, the next hypothesis tested scalar invariance. Scalar invariance was tested
by constraining the intercepts of all items for which metric invariance was estab-
lished. That is, we constrained 15 items in the case of the boy sample and 13 items
for the girl sample out of 22 items of PIPSQ. As shown in Table 2, the partial scalar
invariance model did not fit the data based on both chi-square changes (boys:
χ 2 =
72.60,
df = 15, P < 0.01, girls:
χ 2 = 117.48, df = 13, P < 0.01), but it reason-
ably fit the data based on goodness of fit indices changes (boys:
CFI = 0.01 and

NNFI = 0.00, girls:
CFI = 0.01 and
NNFI = 0.01). We concluded that weak
partial measurement invariance was established.

5.2.3 Saudi sample versus USA sample

The configural invariance. The results in Table 2 indicated that the model is well fit
for the suggested model. As shown in Table 2, although the chi-squares were signifi-
cant, the fit indices for boys were highly acceptable indicating support for Configural
invariance between Saudi and USA boys/girls.
Metric invariance. To test for metric invariance, the factor pattern coefficients were
constrained to be equal. These constraints increased the χ 2 values. Because the metric
invariance model is nested within the configural invariance model, a χ 2 difference
test was performed. Because the χ 2 differences in change (boys:
χ 2 = 94.33, df =
22, P < 0.01, girls:
χ 2 = 191.61, df = 22, P < 0.01) were statistically significant
at α = .01, and the changes of fit indices (boys:
CFI = 0.02 and
NNFI = 0.02,
girls:
CFI = 0.06 and
NNFI = 0.06) were less than the cutoff scores. We conclude
that equivalence could not be assumed for any of the two scales across the Saudi and
American boys or girls. My analysis therefore proceeded to explore partial invariance
of the two scales.
Partial metric invariance. For boys four items out of ten items of the bullying
scale were invariant and all twelve items of the victim scale were invariant. On the
other side, the girls’ data showed that two items out of ten items of the bullying scale

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 69

were invariant and seven items out of twelve items of the victim scale were invariant.
Partial metric invariance model fit the data on the basis of chi-square changes (boys:

χ 2 = 27.82, df = 16, P > 0.01, girls:
χ 2 = 17.35, df = 9, P > 0.01) and based
on goodness of fit indices changes (boys:
CFI = 0.00 and
NNFI = 0.00, girls:

CFI = 0.00 and
NNFI = 0.00).
Partial scalar invariance. Because the partial metric invariance model was sup-
ported, the next hypothesis tested scalar invariance. Scalar invariance was tested by
constraining the intercepts of all items for which metric invariance was established.
That is, we constrained 16 items in the case of the boy sample and 9 items for the
girl sample out of 22 items of PIPSQ. As shown in Table 2, the scalar invariance
model did not fit the data based on chi-square changes (boys:
χ 2 = 87.16,
df =
16, P < 0.01, girls:
χ 2 = 51.93, df = 9, P < 0.01), however, goodness of fit
indices changes (boys:
CFI = 0.01 and
NNFI = 0.01, girls:
CFI = 0.01
and
NNFI = 0.01) were acceptable. We concluded that partial scalar measurement
invariance was established.
All the loadings of noninvariant items of the bullying subscale were higher in the
Egyptian and Saudi samples than the USA sample except item 18 “ I feel bad because
I am mean to other students.” Its loading was higher in the USA than the two Arab
samples. That is, item 18 makes a higher contribution within the USA sample than the
Arab samples.
On the other hand, the factor loadings of noninvariant items of the victim subscale
were higher in the USA boys than the Egyptian boys, whereas the loadings of nonin-
variant items were higher in the data of Egyptian girls than USA girls. The results were
mixed in the case of USA and Saudi girls, the factor loading of three noninvariant items
(5, 15 and 17) were higher in USA than Saudi girls, whereas the factor loadings of
two items (1 and 11) were higher in Saudi than USA girls. That is, the noninvariant
items contribute differently across the girls in the two cultures.
Testing of latent mean differences. Given that there was at least one item in each
factor scale that showed metric and scalar invariance, the invariance for latent mean
scores for the two latent constructs were examined. In Latent Mean Analysis (LMA),
the mean of a latent variable (for example bullying) cannot be directly estimated
(Hancock 1997). However, it is possible to estimate the difference between the means
of a construct across groups by fixing one of the construct means to zero. That is,
the value of the latent bullying mean is constrained to be zero for the reference group
(for example, the Egyptian male sample) while it is estimated for the other group (for
example Saudi male sample). Because the latent mean is equal to zero in the reference
group, the estimated value of the latent mean in the other group indicates the mean
difference in the latent construct between the two groups. The significance test for the
latent mean estimate is the test for significance of the difference between the means
of the two groups on bullying.
As shown in Table 3, Egyptian and Saudi boys and girls had higher levels of
bullying than USA boys and girls. On the other side there were no statistically sig-
nificant differences in the levels of bullying among Egyptian boys and Saudi boys,
whereas Saudi girls had higher levels of bullying than Egyptian girls. Also, the results
indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the levels of victimiza-
tion among boys in the three cultures. On the other hand Saudi girls had higher levels

123
70 M. H. Hussein

Table 3 Estimated latent mean differences (t-value) of the PIPSQ factors between the three paired culture
samples

Gender Scale USA versus Egypt USA versus Saudi Egypt versus Saudi
USA Egyptian USA Saudi Egyptian Saudi

Boys Bully 0 0.62 (4.34) 0 0.64 (4.64) 0 0.16 (1.45)

Victim 0 −0.15 (−1.21) 0 0.17 (1.40) 0 0.22 (1.95)
Girls Bully 0 0.51 (3.75) 0 0.95 (5.26) 0 0.36 (2.96)
Victim 0 −0.32 (2.84) 0 0.47 (3.27) 0 0.66 (5.19)

Table 4 Goodness of fit indices of gender invariance models

χp2 value (df)
χ 2
df CFI
CFI NNFI
NNFI RMSEA

Egypt
Configural invariance 729.30(416) – – 0.93 – 0.93 – 0.07
Metric invariance 761.17(438) 31.87 22 0.93 0.00 0.93 0.00 0.07
Scalar invariance 817.91(460) 56.74* 22 0.93 0.00 0.93 0.00 0.07
Saudi
Configural invariance 568.80(416) – – 0.95 – 0.95 – 0.05
Metric invariance 636.46(438) 67.66* 22 0.94 0.01 0.94 0.01 0.05
Scalar invariance 690.09(460) 53.63* 22 0.93 0.01 0.95 0.00 0.05
USA
Configural invariance 682.95(416) – – 0.93 – 0.92 – 0.07
Metric invariance 693.12(438) 10.17 22 0.93 0.00 0.92 0.00 0.07
Scalar invariance 798.41(460) 105.92* 22 0.90 0.03 0.90 0.02 0.08
Partial scalar invariance 724.17(456) 31.05 18 0.92 0.01 0.92 0.00 0.07
* P < 0.01

of victimization than Egyptian and USA girls, whereas USA girls had higher levels
of victimization than Egyptian girls.

5.3 Gender invariance

Configural invariance. As shown in Table 4, the results of CFA of the two-factor

oblique model showed good fit on the basis of chi-square and excellent fit on the basis
of practical fit indices. This model was used as a baseline model for testing metric
invariance and scalar invariance l within the three cultures.
Metric invariance. In the next step of the invariance analysis, all components of
the factor loading matrix were constrained to numerical equality in both genders. The
resulting fit statistics and indices are shown in Table 4. In comparison to the baseline
model (configural invariance model), the result of fixing all lambda elements to equiv-
alence led to a non-significance increase in χ 2 within Egyptian and USA samples.
Whereas, it was significant for the Saudi sample, other statistics for metric invariance
in Table 4 suggest that there is little change in fit. In particular, the CFI, NNFI, and

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 71

Table 5 Estimated latent mean differences (t-value) of the PIPSQ factors between boys and girls in the
three cultures

Scale Egypt Saudi USA

Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys

Bully 0 0.35 (3.07) 0 0.12 (1.01) 0 0.45 (3.23)

Victim 0 0.13 (1.14) 0 −0.43(−3.42) 0 0.05 (0.38)

standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) reflect little absolute change from
configural invariance. This pattern of results supports the retention of the hypothesis
of equality of the factor loading matrices across boys and girls in the three cultures.
Scalar invariance. Next, the metric Invariance Model was modified to fix the numer-
ical values of the intercepts to equality across groups. The equality of intercepts in
addition to factor loadings showed a statistically significant increase in the value of
the χ 2 statistic. The values of all of the other fit indices suggested little absolute loss
of fit for the Egyptian sample and the Saudi sample, whereas it was large for the
USA sample. These results indicate that intercepts are equal across boys and girls in
the Egyptian sample and the Saudi sample, whereas they were not invariant across
boys and girls in the USA sample. The estimated modification indices from the USA
sample indicated that the intercepts of four items from victim scale were noninvariant
across boys and girls. The modified partial scalar model showed a good fit based on
chi-square and practical fit indices changes.
Latent mean differences between boys and girls. For an examination of latent mean
differences, a prerequisite is invariance for the measurement model for the groups
being compared. As reported earlier, there was invariance for the measurement model
of the PIPSQ for boys and girls within the three cultures, thereby justifying the exam-
ination of latent mean differences across the gender groups for the two subscales of
the PIPSQ.
Table 5 displays the results of latent mean differences between boys and girls within
each culture. The results indicated that boys had higher latent mean scores on the bul-
lying subscale than girls in the three cultures. However, these differences were only
statistically significant within Egyptian and USA cultures. On the other hand, there
were no statistically significant differences in the mean scores on the victim subscale
between boys and girls in Egyptian and USA cultures, whereas, it was statistically
significant between boys and girls within Saudi culture in favor of girls.

6 Discussion

The PIPSQ was designed as a two-oblique factor scale, with 12 indicators associated
with the bullying subscale and 10 indicators associated with the victim subscale. In
this study, the measurement model was first examined to determine whether the model
generalized from the USA culture to Egyptian and Saudi cultures, and across the boys
and girls within each culture. This study confirmed the usefulness of the bully and
victim subscales as the two-correlated factor model had reasonably good for fit the
data of boys and girls from the three cultures.

123
72 M. H. Hussein

These results are especially interesting, given that our PIPSQ data were obtained
from two non-western (Egyptian and Saudi) populations. This work supports the find-
ing of previous studies that the basic constructs of bullying and victim may be stable
cross-culturally, an important consideration in evaluating the potential utility of these
two subscales in cultural groups other than those in which they were developed.
Having established a baseline model in all three (Egyptian, Saudi and American)
samples, metric and scalar invariance were tested. We conducted tests of equivalence
of bullying and victim subscales on the basis of pairwise comparisons (for exam-
ple, Egyptian boys versus USA boys). Six paired comparisons were conducted across
the three cultures, one comparison for each gender, and three paired comparisons
were conducted between two genders within each culture (for example Egyptian boys
versus Egyptian girls).
In relation to culture, the results of the current study indicated support for full
configural, metric, and scalar invariance across Egyptian and Saudi boys and girls,
That is Egyptian boys/girls and Saudi boys/girls interpreted the item contents of
the questionnaire in the same way, the constructs are manifested in the same way
across groups and that the strength of the item–construct relationships is the same,
and items of bullying and victim subscales have the same importance and have the
same relative contribution for making the bullying and victim subscales in the two
cultures.
On the other hand, there was only support for partial metric and scalar invariance
across Egyptian and Saudi boys and girls versus American boys and girls respectively.
That is, item contents were perceived differently across the two Arab cultures and
American cultures. Also, the noninvariant item intercepts across the two Arab cul-
tures and American culture indicated that individuals (boys or girls) in different groups,
with equivalent standing on the latent variables, are expected to use the magnitude
of a response scale in different ways. We concluded that PIPSQ could be used to
compare bullying and victimization across Egyptian and Saudi boys\girls, but the
PIPSQ should be used with caution to compare the same two subscales across Arab
and American cultures. This conclusion could be explained in several ways. First,
culture could effect the measurement invariance of the scale through item content, if
the construct relevance of item content differs across cultures. This can result in non-
equivalence. Second, when the translation is not done carefully, translated measures
are unlikely to capture the intended construct to the same degree. Translation problems
might also be encountered when items include words with nonspecific meaning, such
as those implying quantities, probabilities, places, or evaluation (Robert et al. 2006).
Finally, low proficiency in a language will result in difficulty in understanding idioms,
colloquialisms, or other words with nonspecific meaning.
Latent mean analyses of the same gender across the three cultures indicated that
Egyptian and Saudi boys and girls had a higher score mean on the bullying subscale
than corresponding USA boys and girls, and there were no statistically significant
differences between Egyptian and Saudi boys on latent mean scores of the bullying
subscales. On the other hand, boys in the three cultures had a similar level on the
victim subscale, whereas Saudi girls had a higher score on the victim subscale than
Egyptian and USA girls. USA girls had a higher level of being victim than Egyptian
girls. The results that Arab boys and girls had higher levels of bullying than their

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 73

counterparts in the USA sample could be explained based on Egyptian and Saudi
cultures that are different from the USA culture. According to Hofstede (2001) Arab
countries are classified as collectivistic, whereas the USA is classified as individual-
istic.
Authoritarian parenting uses higher levels of control over children, emphasizes
obedience, and is more restraining during social play and feeding than are those that
emphasize independence (Chao 1994). Authoritarian parenting is associated with bul-
lying among children (Dake et al. 2003) and is the dominant style in collective cul-
tures, whereas authoritative parenting that emphasizes negotiation and responsiveness
to children’s input is dominant in individualistic cultures such as USA culture. Author-
itative parenting is related negatively with bullying.
The educational system in collectivistic countries (e.g., Egypt and Saudi Arabia) is
worse than their counterparts in the individualistic countries, classroom density in the
collectivism countries is high, watching students outside classroom is an unimportant
issue, and corporal punishment is the dominant method to control the classroom. The
Arab educational system emphasizes high academic competition which is correlated
with bullying, and at the same time it produces low levels of achievement and might
create large numbers of students who find schooling useless and may be more prone
to act out their frustration in bullying forms (Ebrahim 1996).
In relation to gender, the results indicated that full configural, metric and scalar
invariance were met across the boys and girls within each culture, and the two-oblique
factor model fit the data collected within each culture very well. These results support
the findings from Tarshis and Huffman (2007). Latent mean analysis indicated that
Egyptian, Saudi and American boys had higher mean scores on bullying subscales
than their female counterparts.
This result supports the findings from previous research (Seals and Young 2003;
Wolke et al. 2001). Also, the results indicated that there were no gender differences
in victimization within Egyptian and American cultures, whereas Saudi girls reported
a higher level of victimization than Saudi boys. Saudi girls who participated in the
current study are enrolled in single gender primary schools, whereas Egyptian and
American samples are from mixed-gender primary schools. This unique feature of the
Saudi sample might explain the high level of bullying and victimization among Saudi
girls, where the target of bullying always is girls, given that girls are more likely to
bully other girls and boys tend to bully both boys and girls (Nansel et al. 2001; Hoo-
ver and Oliver 1996). Single-sex schooling benefits girls in particular, by providing
them with an environment in which they can participate with confidence, free from
the distractions caused by the presence of boys in the classroom. However, both males
and females perceived some disadvantages of single-sex education regarding social
development, and girls missed the opportunity to gain the perspective of the opposite
sex (Spielhofer et al. 2004).

References

Albheary, A. A. (2005). School violence: The negative effects, preventive strategies and remedial
intervention. In Conference of child and youth in the cities of Middle East and North Africa:
Facing for educational challenges, 16–18 May, 2005. Dubai, United Arab Emirate.

123
74 M. H. Hussein

Austin, S., & Joseph, S. (1996). Assessment of bully/victim problems in 8 to 11 year-olds. British
Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 447–456.
Baldry, A. C., & Farrington, D. P. (2000). Bullies and delinquents: Personal characteristics and parental
styles. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 10, 17–31.
Barrio, C., Martin, E., Montero, I., Gutierrez, H., Barrios, A., & Josede Dios, M. (2008). Bullying and
social exclusion in Spanish secondary schools: National trends from 1999 to 2006. International
Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 8(3), 657–677.
Bentley, K. M., & Li, A. (1995). Bully and victim problems in elementary schools and students’ beliefs
about aggression. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 11, 153–165.
Berthold, K. A., & Hoover, J. H. (2000). Correlates of bullying and victimization among intermediate
students in the Midwestern USA. School Psychology International, 21, 65–78.
Byrne, B. M. (1994). Testing for the factorial validity, replication, and invariance of a measuring
instrument: A paradigmatic application based on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Multivariate
Behavioral Research, 29, 289–311.
Chan, H. F. J. (2002) The school life survey—a new instrument for measuring bullying and victimization.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, UK: University of Hull.
Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding Chinese
parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Development, 65(4), 1111–1119.
Cheung, G. W., & Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement
invariance. Structural Equation Modeling, 9, 233–255.
Clarke, E. A., & Kiselica, M. S. (1997). A systemic counseling approach to the problem of bully-
ing. Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, 31, 310–315.
Craig, W. M., & Pepler, D. J. (2007). Understanding bullying: From research to practice. Canadian
Psychology, 48(2), 86–93.
Cerezo, F., & Ato, M. (2005). Bullying in Spanish and English Pupils: A sociometric perspective using
the BULL-S questionnaire. Educational Psychology, 25(4), 353–367.
Crystal, S. (1994). Concepts of deviance in children and adolescence: The case of Japan. Deviant
Behavior, 15(3), 241–266.
Curran, P. J., West, S. G, & Finch, J. F. (1996). The robustness of test statistics to nonnormality and
specification error in confirmatory factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 1, 16–29.
Dake, J. A., Price, J. H., & Telljohann, S. K. (2003). The nature and extent of bullying at school. Journal
of School Health, 73(5), 173–180.
DeVoe, J. F., Peter, K., Kaufman, P., Miller, A., Noonan, M., Snyder, T.D., & Baum, K. (2004).
Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2004(NCES2005- 02/NCJ205290). U.S. Departments of
Education and Justice. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Ebrahim, M. A. M. (1996). Societal factors leading to violence in some Cairo schools. Social and
Educational Studies, 2(3,4), 1–38.
Embry, S. L. (1995). Types of name-calling experienced by second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth
graders and their beliefs about their peers. Dissertation Abstracts International, 56, 3905. (AAT
No. 9604759).
Eslea, M., Menesini, E., Morita, Y., O’Moore, M., Mora-Merchán, J. A., Pereira, B., & Smith, P. K.
(2003). Friendship and loneliness among bullies and victims: Data from seven countries. Aggressive
Behavior, 30, 71–83.
Gini, G. (2004). Bullying in Italian schools: An overview of intervention programmes. School Psychology
International, 25(1), 106–116.
Glover, D., Gough, G., Johnson, M., & Cartwright, N. (2000). Bullying in 25 secondary schools:
Incidence, impact and intervention. Educational Research, 42(2), 141–156.
Green, J. G. (2007) A Psychometric analysis of the school victimization scale: Cross-cultural equiva-
lence in the United States, Guatemala, and Israel. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University
of California, Santa Barbara.
Gropper, N., & Froschl, M. (2000). The role of gender in young children’s teasing and bullying
behavior. Equity & Excellence in Education, 33(1), 48–56.
Hancock, G. R. (1997). Structural equation modeling methods of hypothesis testing of latent variable
means. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 30, 91–105.
Hansen, K. L., Melhus, M., Høgmo, A., & Lund, E. (2008). Ethnic discrimination and bullying in
the Sami and non-Sami populations in Norway: The SAMINOR study. International Journal of
Circumpolar Health, 67(1), 99–115.

123
The Peer Interaction in Primary School Questionnaire 75

Harter, S. (1985). The self-perception profile for children [Manual]. Unpublished manuscript, University
of Denver.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s recent consequences: Using dimension scores in theory and research. Inter-
national Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 1(1), 11–30.
Holmberg, K., & Hjern, A. (2008). Bullying and attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder in 10-year-olds
in a Swedish community. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 50, 134–138.
Hoover, J. H., & Oliver, R. (1996). The bullying prevention handbook: A guide for principals, teachers
and counselors. Bloomington,IN: National Educational Service.
Jöreskog, K. G., & Sörbom, D. (1993). LISREL 8: User’s reference guide. Chicago, IL: Scientific
Software International.
Khatri, P., & Kupersmidt, J. B. (2003). Aggression, peer victimisation, and social relationships among
Indian youth. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27(1), 87–95.
Klomek, A. B., Sourander, A., Kumpulainen, K., Piha, J., Tamminen, T., Moilanen, I., Almqvist,
F., & Gould, M. (2008). Childhood bullying as a risk for later depression and suicidal ideation
among Finnish males. Journal of Affective Disorders, 109, 47–55.
Kumpulainen, K., & Rasanen, E. (2000). Children involved in bullying at elementary school age: Their
psychiatric symptoms and deviance in adolescence. An epidemiological sample. Child Abuse &
Neglect, 24, 1567–1577.
Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2001). Adolescence in America, An encyclopedia (Vols. 1 & 2). Santa
Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Nabuzoka, D. (2003). Experiences of bullying-related behaviors by English and Zambian pupils: A
comparative study. Educational Research, 45(1), 95–109.
Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R. S., Ruan, W. J., Simons-Morton, B., & Scheidt,
P. (2001). Bullying behaviors among US youth prevalence and association with psychosocial
adjustment. JAMA, 25, 2094–2100.
Natvig, G. K., Albrektsen, G., & Qvarnstrom, U. (2001). School-related stress experience as a risk
factor for bullying behavior. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 30, 561–575.
Neary, A., & Joseph, S. (1994). Peer victimization and its relationship to self-concept and depression
among schoolgirls. Personality and Individual Differences, 16(1), 183–186.
Nesdale, D., & Naito, M. (2005). Individualism-collectivism and attitudes to school bullying of Japanese
and Australian students. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 36(5), 537–556.
Obrdalj, E. Č., & Rumboldt, M. (2008). Bullying among school children in postwar Bosnia and
Herzegovina: Cross-sectional study. Croatian Medican Journal, 49, 528–535.
Olweus, D. (1983). Bully/victim questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, Norway: University of Bergen.
Olweus, D. (1994). Annotation: Bullying at school: Basic facts & effects of a school-based intervention
program. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 35, 1171–1190.
Olweus, D. (2003). A profile of bullying. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 12–17.
Pateraki, L., & Houndoumadi, A. (2001). Bullying among primary school children in Athens, Greece. Edu-
cational Psychology, 21(2), 167–175.
Pellegrini, A. D., Barrini, M., & Brooks, F. (1999). School bullies, victims, and aggressive victims: Factors
relating to group affiliation and victimization. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 216–224.
Rigby, K, Slee, P., & Conolly, C. (1991). Victims and bullies in school communities. Journal of the
Australasian Society of Victimology, 1, 25–31.
Robert, C., Lee, W. C., & Chan, K.Y. (2006). An empirical analysis of measurement equivalence
with the INDCOL measure of individualism and collectivism: Implications for valid cross-cultural
inference. Personnel Psychology, 59, 65–99.
Ross, D. M. (1996). Childhood bullying and teasing: What school personnel, other professionals, and
parents can do. Alexandria, VA: American Counselling Association.
Scheithauer, H., Hayer, T., Petermann, F., & Jugert, G. (2006). Physical, verbal, and relational forms
of bullying among German students: Age trends, gender differences, and correlates. Aggressive
Behavior, 32, 261–275.
Seals, D., & Young, J. (2003). Bullying and victimization: Prevalence and relationship to gender, grade
level, ethnicity, self-esteem, and depression. Adolescence, 38, 735–747.
Smith, P. K., Cowie, H., Olafsson, R. F., & Liefooghe, A. P. D. (2002). Definitions of bullying: A
comparison of terms used, and age and gender differences, in a fourteen-country international
comparison. Child Development, 73(4), 1119–1133.

123
76 M. H. Hussein

Smith, P. K., Morita, Y., Junger-Tas, J., Olweus, D., Catalano, R., & Slee, P. (1999). The nature of
school bullying: A cross-national perspective. London: Routledge.
Smorti, A., Menesini, E., & Smith, P. K. (2003). Parents’ definitions of children’s bullying in a
five-country comparison. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 34(4), 417–432.
Spielhofer, T., Benton, T., & Schagen, S. (2004). A study of the effects of school size and single-sex
education in English schools. Research Papers in Education, 19(2), 133–159.
Steenkamp, J.-B. E. M., & Baumgartner, H. (1998). Assessing measurement invariance in crossnational
consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 25, 78–90.
Tarshis, T. P., & Huffman, L. C. (2007). Psychometric properties of the peer interactions in primary
school (PIPS) Questionnaire. Journal of Development & Behavioral Pediatrics, 28(2), 125–132.
Vander Wal, M. F., Wit, C. A. M., & de Hirasing, R. A. (2003). Psychosocial health among young
victims and offenders of direct and indirect bullying. Pediatrics, 111(6), 1312–1317.
Vandenberg, R. J., & Lance, C. E. (2000). A review and synthesis of the measurements invariance
literature: Suggestions, practices, and recommendations for organizational research. Organizational
Research Methods, 3, 4–69.
West, S. G., Finch, J. F., & Curran, P. J. (1995). Structural equation models with nonnormal variables:
Problems and remedies. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation modeling: Concepts, issues and
applications (p. 56275). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Wolke, D., Woods, S., Stanford, K., & Schulz, H. (2001). Bullying and victimization of primary
school children in England and Germany: Prevalence and school factors. British Journal of
Psychology, 92, 673–696.

Author Biography
Mohamed Habashy Hussein is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at King Khalid Uni-
versity, Abha, Saudi Arabia. He graduated with a doctorate from the University of Georgia, Athens,
Georgia, USA. He has published several papers in both English and Arabic languages. His research
interests are applications of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and classical and item re-
sponse theory in cross-cultural studies.

123