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Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce …

Effectiveness of school - based programs to reducebullying: a systematic and meta-analytic reviewMaria M. Ttofi&David P. FarringtonPublished online: 16 September 2010#Springer Science+Business Media 2010 AbstractThis article presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of theeffectiveness of anti-bullying programs in schools. Studies were included if theyevaluated the effects of an anti-bullying program by comparing an interventiongroup who received the program with a control group who did not. Four types ofresearch design were included: a) randomized experiments, b) intervention-controlcomparisons with before-and-after measures of bullying, c) other intervention-control comparisons, and d) age-cohort designs. Both published and unpublishedreports were included.

Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: a systematic and meta-analytic review Maria M. Ttofi & David P. Farrington Published online: 16 …

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1 Effectiveness of school - based programs to reducebullying: a systematic and meta-analytic reviewMaria M. Ttofi&David P. FarringtonPublished online: 16 September 2010#Springer Science+Business Media 2010 AbstractThis article presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of theeffectiveness of anti-bullying programs in schools. Studies were included if theyevaluated the effects of an anti-bullying program by comparing an interventiongroup who received the program with a control group who did not. Four types ofresearch design were included: a) randomized experiments, b) intervention-controlcomparisons with before-and-after measures of bullying, c) other intervention-control comparisons, and d) age-cohort designs. Both published and unpublishedreports were included.

2 All volumes of 35 journals from 1983 up to the end of May2009 were hand-searched, as were 18 electronic databases. Reports in languagesother than English were also included. A total of 622 reports concerned withbullying prevention were found, and 89 of these reports (describing 53 differentprogram evaluations) were included in our review . Of the 53 different programevaluations, 44 provided data that permitted the calculation of an effect size forbullying or victimization. The meta-analysis of these 44 evaluations showed that,overall, school - based anti-bullying programs are effective: on average, bullyingdecreased by 20 23% and victimization decreased by 17 20%. Program elementsand intervention components that were associated with a decrease in bullying andvictimization were identified, based on feedback from researchers about the codingof 40 out of 44 programs .

3 More intensive programs were more effective, as wereprograms including parent meetings, firm disciplinary methods, and improvedplayground supervision. Work with peers was associated with an increase inJ Exp Criminol (2011) 7:27 56 DOI M. TtofiLeverhulme and Newton Trust Early Career Fellow, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University,Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UKe-mail: P. FarringtonPsychological Criminology, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University, Sidgwick Avenue,Cambridge CB3 9DA, UKD. P. Farrington (*)Institute of Criminology, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UKe-mail: It is concluded that the time is ripe to mount a new program ofresearch on the Effectiveness of anti-bullying programs based on these the serious short-term and long-term effects of bullying on children s physicaland mental health (Ttofi and Farrington2008), it is understandable why schoolbullying has increasingly become a topic of both public concern and research school - based intervention programs have been devised and implemented in anattempt to reduce school bullying.

4 The first large-scale anti-bullying program wasimplemented nationally in Norway in 1983. A more intensive version of the nationalprogram was evaluated in Bergen by Olweus (1991). This evaluation showed adramatic decrease of about half in victimization (being bullied) after the then, many other anti-bullying strategies have been implemented but lessfrequently definition of school bullying includes several key elements: physical, verbal,or psychological attack or intimidation that is intended to cause fear, distress, orharm to the victim; an imbalance of power (psychological or physical) with a morepowerful child (or children) oppressing less powerful ones; and repeated incidentsbetween the same children over a prolonged period of time (Farrington1993;Olweus1993b).

5 According to this definition, it is not bullying when two persons ofthe same strength (physical, psychological, or verbal) victimize each other. Schoolbullying can occur in school or on the way to or from research is generally targeted on school violence or peer victimizationrather than bullying. Bullying is different from school violence or peer example, bullying includes being called nasty names, being rejected, ostracized,or excluded from activities, and having rumors spread about you (Baldry andFarrington1999). Also, bullying involves an imbalance of power and repeated are a number of existing reviews of school violence programs and school - based interventions for aggressive behavior ( , Howard et ; Mytton et ; Wilson and Lipsey2007).

6 We have consulted these, but we must emphasizethat our research aims to review programs that are explicitly designed to reducebullying and that explicitly measure bullying. Bullying is a type of aggressivebehavior (Andershed et ; Salmivalli and Nieminen2002). However, itshould not be equated with aggression or violence; not all aggression or violenceinvolves bullying, and not all bullying involves aggression or most informative single source of reports of anti-bullying programs is thebook edited by Smith et al. (2004a), which contains descriptions of 13 programsimplemented in 11 different countries. Baldry and Farrington (2007) reviewed 16major evaluations in 11 different countries, of which five involved an uncontrolledmethodological design.

7 There are also some reviews containing summaries of majoranti-bullying programs ( , Rigby,2002; Smith et ). The most relevantexisting reviews are by Smith et al. (2004), who summarized effect sizes in Ttofi, Farringtonwhole- school anti-bullying programs , and by Vreeman and Carroll (2007), whoreviewed 26 school - based programs . However, neither carried out a full meta-analysis measuring weighted mean effect sizes and correlations between studyfeatures and effect et al. (2004) reviewed 14 evaluations up to 2002, six of which wereuncontrolled. Vreeman and Carroll (2007) reviewed 26 evaluations up to 2004,restricted to studies published in the English language and with only 15 programsspecifically concerned with bullying.

8 Another meta-analytic review was publishedby Ferguson et al. (2007). However, this included searches in only one database(PsycINFO) for articles published between the years 1995 and 2006. It includedoutcome variables that measured some element of bullying behavior or aggressiontoward peers, including direct aggressive behavior toward children in a schoolsetting (p. 407). The latest meta-analytic review was completed by Merrell et al.(2008). However, this included searches in only two databases (PsycINFO andERIC) for studies published only in English, and it included a wide range ofoutcome measures; there were only eight studies where the outcome was self-reported bullying and only ten studies where the outcome was present review includes many more evaluations (53 in total) and aims toinvestigate the Effectiveness of program components.

9 Special efforts were made toavoid problems arising from duplicate publications. For example, the FlemishAntibullying Program1was evaluated once and the results were disseminated in fourpublications. However, in contrast to previous reviews ( , Merrell et ), wecarefully coded it as only one evaluation. As another example, findings on theeffectiveness of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program were disseminated in 22publications, but the program was tested in only eight separate the present report, we go beyond previous reviews by: a) doing much moreextensive searches for evaluations such as hand-searching all volumes of 35 journalsfrom 1983 up to the end of May 2009; b) searching for international evaluations in18 electronic databases and in languages other than English; c) carrying out muchmore extensive meta-analyses (including correlating effect sizes with study features,research design, and program components).

10 And d) focusing only on programs thatare specifically designed to reduce bullying and not aggressive behavior ( , theoutcome variables specifically measure bullying). This article is based on our reviewfor the Campbell Collaboration (Farrington and Ttofi2009); a previous review forthe Swedish National Council for Crime prevention (Ttofi et ) was based onthe largest evaluations (including at least 200 students). We expected that the smallerevaluations might be affected by publication bias, but found none in the Campbellreview (Farrington and Ttofi2009, p. 68).All the programs are described in our Campbell review , but it is useful to describeone program here. The KiVa program from Finland (Karna et ) usedthe Internet (including password-specific online questionnaires and Web-basedforums for teachers) and visual learning environments ( , computer gamesinvolving bullying) to change students attitudes about bullying.


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