Developmental stage of performance in reasoning about school bullying.

Abstract

The Student-Bully Problem, an assessment of cognitive developmental stage adapted from Commons et al.’s (2006) Counselor-Patient Problem, was administered to 176 adolescent participants and 77 adult participants at an urban high school, urban middle school, and mid-size college (N = 253). This study investigated the following inquiries: At what cognitive developmental stages (as defined by the Model of Hierarchical Complexity) do urban high school and middle school students reason about bullying? How effective is the Student-Bully Problem at measuring cognitive developmental stage? Item and person Rasch scores were used to identify each participant’s cognitive developmental stage of performance on the Student-Bully Problem, and to identify the item difficulty of the Student-Bully Problem’s items. The Rasch analysis was also used to assess the validity and reliability of the Student-Bully Problem. Participants performed at the preoperational through metasystematic stages on the Student-Bully Problem. The Student-Bully Problem proved to be a useful tool in assessing cognitive developmental stage of performance in reasoning about bullying in school age youth. The Student-Bully Problem was modified with the goal of improving the instrument’s effectiveness. Consequently, the Student Bully Problem ( 2.0) was created and administered to 116 urban high school students. Initial results (see discussion) indicate the modified version could be more effective