Psychological distress and student engagement as mediators of the relationship between peer victimization and achievement in middle school youth.

Peer victimization is a well-known national and international problem, contributing to a range of emotional, social, and behavioral consequences. Using structural equation modeling, the authors tested a theoretical model suggesting that psychological distress and student engagement mediate the association between the experience of victimization and concurrent academic achievement. Participants were 469 (46.4 % male, 53.6 % female) 6th to 8th grade students, from randomly selected classrooms in 11 middle schools in a southeastern school district. Structural equation models of the hypothesized effects demonstrated adequate fit to the data, with both symptoms of psychological distress and engagement mediating the relationship between victimization and academic achievement. In general, the results suggest that victimization predicts diminished academic achievement by way of psychological distress and poorer engagement in classroom and academic tasks. However, the direct relationship between victimization and measures of achievement lacked significance across many correlational and path analyses conducted. These findings have implications for researchers and practitioners in understanding how psychological distress and student engagement are associated with the academic performance of students who experience peer victimization.

Multiple informants in the assessment of psychological, behavioral, and academic correlates of bullying and victimization in middle school.

The present study assessed agreement between student self-report and teacher ratings of bullying and victimization relative to psychological, behavioral, and academic correlates. Middle school students (N=1442) and teachers completed surveys evaluating peer relationships and psychosocial adjustment. Analyses of variance and logistic regressions were used to examine rater agreement on bullying/victimization and adjustment among groups (bullies, victims, bully/victims, and uninvolved) identified by rater (student self-report only, teacher-report only, concordant reports, and controversial reports). Concordant and controversial groups had among the greatest psychosocial and academic difficulties. Student learning difficulties and moodiness interacted with teacher reports of bullying and victimization, respectively, with agreement between teacher and student self reports of bullying greater at higher levels of learning problems and agreement for victimization lower at higher levels of moodiness. The results indicate biases in rater perspective of student behavior and continue to support the need for multiple raters of student functioning.