Teachers' Recognition of Victims of School Bullying Using Data from the Adolescents' Mental Health and Problem Behavior Screening Questionnaire-II Standardization Study in Korea

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The current study was conducted in order to investigate teachers'recognition of school bullying using a nationwide database of adolescents in middle and high school in Korea. METHODS: Students in the 7th to 12th grades at 23 secondary schools participated in the current study during the fall of 2009. Subjects completed the self-report form of the Adolescent Mental Health and Problem Behavior Screening Questionnaire-II (AMPQ-II) and Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90-R). In addition, relevant teachers used the teachers' rating scale of the AMPQ-II to report their students' status. Differences in the number of bullied students between teachers' recognition and students' report were explored. RESULTS: A total of 2270 subjects provided relevant responses to the questionnaire. While the one-month prevalence of victimization according to students' self-reports was 28.9%, the recognized prevalence by teachers was only 10.6%. For prediction of the presence of school bullying according to students' self reports on the AMPQ-II, item 7 of the teachers' report on the AMPQ-II showed a sensitivity of 16%, a specificity of 92%, a positive predictability of 44%, a negative predictability of 72%, a false positive rate of 8%, a false negative rate of 84%, and an accuracy of 69%, respectively. No significant differences in subscores of students' self reports of the AMPQ-II and SCL-90-R were observed between bullied students who were recognized by teachers and those who were not recognized. In stepwise discriminant analysis, classification of teachers' item 2 and item 7 on the AMPQ-II with respect to school bullying according to students' reports showed an accuracy of 63.4%. Using this model, 75.2% of non-victimized subjects were classified correctly, while only 35.2% of victimized subjects were classified correctly. CONCLUSION: Despite the high prevalence in Korea, teachers' recognition of school violence among their students remains low. Pre-professional and continuing education to improve teachers' understanding of school bullying and knowledge of effective classroom-based prevention activities should be encouraged.