Research Proposal - Adolescent Development and the Role of a Teacher

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Adolescent Development and the Role of a Teacher

            Adolescence is a stage of development in which an individual experience many changes physically, mentally, sexually and emotionally. This is safe to say without any citation as most adults can testify to this based on their experiences when they were still in their teens. However, these changes can bring crucial outcomes depending on the attitude and disposition of the adolescent concerned. Wild et al (2004) stated that the major causes of adolescent morbidity and mortality are not diseases but preventable behaviors, in interaction with social and environmental factors. Furthermore, the health problems of teens are mainly related to sexual and reproductive health and the use of substances such as tobacco, alcohol and psychoactive drugs (Wild et al, 2004). Thus, it is evident that this stage is most likely the stage where an individual becomes more careless and carefree. Despite of the fact that this is easy to claim, the whole process is complex, which is perhaps the reason why many studies have focused on different adolescent related problems specifically on behavior and attitude. One of the issues that have been tried to be cleared out of many is the issue of bullying. Almost everyone has experienced bullying one way or another during their adolescent days (Smith and Thompson, 1991). Because this is prevalent in schools (Kristensen and Smith, 2003), incidents of bullying are easily seen by teachers and instructors, or fellow students. Because they are involved in the process as spectators of the ‘bully-victim show’, it is interesting to know what their roles are - how they perceive or handle such incidents. Teachers are not only responsible for teaching knowledge to their students, but are also responsible for teaching them moral obligations and considerable attitudes. This statement opens the interest to study the relationship between teachers and bullies. This will be the focus of the proposal, as it will present literatures related to the study, formulate problems and suggest methodology. This topic was chosen to be able to understand more the role that teachers play in adolescent development.

Statement of the Problem

            According to Rydell and Henricsson (2004), teachers differ in the disciplinary strategies they employ, and they differ in how successful they are in dealing with unwanted student behavior. This variety of strategies can bring many different outcomes, as students react differently to each. The whole process of the disciplinary strategies may influence the students to some extent which may later enable them to develop attitudes triggered by that process. For instance, an authoritarian teacher may influence some students to develop bully-like characteristics because of their exposure on the teacher’s aggressiveness. Those who are being humiliated by the teacher’s ways of discipline might be subjected as bully victims by would be victim. Another possibility is that a teacher’s disciplinary strategy might work to prevent students from becoming bullies.  Of course, there are still many possibilities of adolescent development within different disciplinary strategy of teachers, and those are what this research will try to reveal. In doing so, the researcher will try to answer the following queries:

1.         What are the types of disciplinary strategies teachers perform that may have an effect on the bully/victim development of students?

2.         What actions do teachers perform when they spot a student bullying another student?

3.         Do teachers directly discipline students to prevent bullying or do strategies target other issues but has indirect effect on bullying?

4.         What are the perceptions of teachers toward bullying?

5.         How do students react to the disciplinary strategies of teachers?

Literature Review

            There are evidences about the prevalence of bullying.  There is an approximately 9% of children reported being bullied or more frequently, and approximately 7% reported bullying others or more frequently globally (Olweus, 1991, 1993). A specific example is in the United States, where estimates of the percentage of students who report being bullied during a single school year range from 20% to about 30% (Haynie, Nansel, Eitel, et al., 2001; Nansel, Overpeck, Pilla, et al., 2001; Whitney and Smith, 1993). On the other hand, in England in 1990, Whitney and Smith (1993) reported corresponding figures of around 19% of children being bullied and 9% bullying others.

            Houndoumadi and Pateraki (2001) stated that bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior which can happen in any human group. Olweus (1993) defines it as instances ‘when [a student] is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students’ (p. 9). On the other hand, bullying is also known as ‘systematic abuse of power’, as stated by Rigby (2002). It can happen in many contexts but one of the most widely known and perhaps experienced is school bullying. Usually, it can be seen through direct physical and verbal attacks (Smith, 2004). In time, ‘the scope has been broadened to include indirect aggression (done via a third party), relational aggression (done to damage someone’s peer relationships), and social aggression (done to damage self-esteem and/or social status)’ (Smith, 2004, p.98). In addition, there are also hypotheses that social exclusion is one form of bullying.

The study of Boulton and Underwood (1992), found from their respondents of 296 primary and secondary school pupils that 20.1% of all pupils indicated that they became upset by bullies victimizing others. Bullies on the other hand were reported to have random feelings when they bullied other children, as 34% reported feeling ‘good and happy’, 34.8% ‘mad and angry’ and 26% ‘unhappy, bad’. Research also indicates that bullies tend to be male, aggressive, tough, impulsive, and lacking in empathy (Baldry & Farrington, 2000; Olweus, 1993). They tend to have a family background that is high in conflict, authoritarian, harsh, and inconsistent in discipline (Tattum & Herbert, 1997).

            Knafo (2003) stated that bully friends are frequent among offspring of authoritarian parents. The researcher found that 47% of adolescents whose friends frequently participated in bullying have authoritarian fathers. This is acceptable as the views of authoritarians are conservative, submissive to authorities and un-accepting of the out-groups (Knafo, 2003).

            Houndoumadi and Pateraki (2001) found that teachers and parents are rarely informed of the victimization of pupils. They stated however, that parents are more aware about children being bullied than teachers. This holds for both victims, where 36.2% of teachers versus 62% of parents had talked to the children, and bullies/victims, where 45.5% of teachers versus 68.1% of parents had talked to the children. Other findings show that teachers seem to have talked less than parents to bullies/victims about bullying others (48.6 versus 65.9%). Bullies reported, on the contrary, that teachers talked with them about their bullying in more cases than had parents (36.7 versus 24%). On the other hand, half of the pupils surveyed about their teacher’s perception on bullying are unaware of how frequently teachers realize that pupils are being bullied (Houdoumadi and Pateraki, 2001).

            The study of Salmivalli, Huttunen and Lagerspetz (1997) looked at how the social constellations in school classes relates to bullying problems. The researchers used peer evaluation questionnaires and found that children who tended to behave in either similar or complimentary participant roles in situations of bullying formed networks with each other. They also found that bullies, assistants and reinforcers belonged to larger networks than did defenders, outsiders and victims. Another finding is that children outside the networks were most often victims.

            Dake et al (2004) aimed at examining principals' perceptions and practices regarding bullying prevention and developed a survey instrument to assess principals' stages of change and perceived barriers regarding selected bullying prevention activities as well as the effectiveness of bullying prevention activities. The survey was mailed to 700 national random samples of principals but only 55% responded. Dake et al (2004) found that none of the school-based bullying prevention activities were being done by more than one in five schools even though principals perceived there to be no barriers regarding these activities. Furthermore, characteristics that affected the suggestions of these activities included number of perceived barriers to implementing the activity i.e. whether the principal had received violence/bullying prevention training, perceptions regarding the extent of bullying, and the number of bullying problems reported to them.

            Rydell and Henricsson (2004) stated that strategies for dealing with problematic student behavior are an important part of the teacher role. They studied the relationship between teacher’s perception and control over children’s classroom behavior, teacher orientation and teachers’ strategy preferences when confronted with externalizing child behaviors by examining or measuring their disciplinary strategy preference and perceived control. The researchers found that perceived low control over one’s classroom situation and a custodial teacher orientation were associated with preferences for authoritarian strategies (firm verbal reprimands, physical restraint) and perceived high control and a humanistic teacher orientation were associated with non-authoritarian strategies (e.g. reasoning with students).

            However, despite the variety of disciplinary strategies, Harrison (1997) claims that many school teachers still lack the skills in talking to the victims of bullying. Harrison (1997) suggested that there is a need to provide teachers with a set of structured interview techniques as a way of talking to a victim of bullying. But in my opinion, teachers should also develop skills in talking with the bullies themselves. Hansen (2004) stated that teaching embodies educational values that have to do with who and what students are becoming as persons. It constitutes a moral endeavor because the ways in which classroom occupants treat and regard one another is integral to whatever teaching and learning takes place (Hansen, 2004). In terms of bullying, Tyler (1998) explained that a key point is that teachers should recognize that bullying is a natural event, and should possess interpersonal skills good enough in preventing the isolation of the bully. Basically, teachers should strive more in developing their counseling skills when dealing with bullies in classrooms.

Objective of the Study

            The objective of the study is to provide statistical evidence regarding the role of the teachers in the whole bullying context. This includes categorizing the roles in terms of their disciplinary strategies. This also includes the investigation about the role that teachers play in the development and prevention of bully-like characteristics within their class. The statistical evidences should provide the bridge for a larger objective of interpreting what has been found and giving recommendations for improvements and future studies.

Significance of the Study

            The study will benefit those who are in the field of psychology and education studies. The function of the teachers as agent of disciplines has many psychological issues that might have influence on the behavior of their students. If such relationship would be confirmed, it will start the development of new studies regarding the issue and might bring fruit to greater knowledge. On the other hand, the educators themselves can benefit from this study as it might reveal what disciplinary strategy is better in preventing the development and influence of bully-like characteristics to students.

Scope and Limitation

            The study will only cover 10 per cent of teachers within an area population and will stay on that due to limited time and budget. Another 10 per cent of students in a particular area will be surveyed. Furthermore, the study will be limited only to surveying as interviews can consume a lot of time which would be difficult to attain with the tight schedules and deadlines. The statistical techniques to be used are percentage and weighted mean with the help of a 5-point Likert Scale, to determine the level of response of each respondents. The study is only limited to quantitative research method and will be treated descriptively.

Methodology

            Primary and secondary research will be utilized in the study. The primary source of data will come from a questionnaire and interviews conducted by the researcher. The primary data will give the detailed definitions of terms and statistical units used in the survey. However, literature reviews will also be present to support the primary findings. Furthermore, the literatures will help determine technical terms in the topic.

The study being proposed will be descriptive in nature. A descriptive research intends to present facts concerning the nature and status of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study (Creswell, 1994). It is also concerned with relationships and practices that exist, beliefs and processes that are ongoing, effects that are being felt, or trends that are developing. (Best, 1970) In addition, such approach tries to describe present conditions, events or systems based on the impressions or reactions of the respondents of the research (Creswell, 1994).

Quantitative research method will be used in the study. It is compatible with the study because it allows the research problem to be conducted in a very specific and set terms (Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias, 1992). Besides, a quantitative research plainly and distinctively specifies both the independent and the dependent variables under investigation (Matveev, 2002). It also follows resolutely the original set of research goals, arriving at more objective conclusions, testing hypothesis, determining the issues of causality and eliminates or minimizes subjectivity of judgment (Kealey and Protheroe, 1996). Further, this method allows for longitudinal measures of subsequent performance of research subjects (Matveev, 2002). Finally, it provides achieving high levels of reliability of gathered data due to i.e. controlled observations, laboratory experiments, mass surveys, or other form of research manipulations (Balsley, 1970). This study should be based on surveys and statistical treatments, so basically the quantitative approach fits well with it.

            The survey questionnaire is the data collection method to be used. The first section will be the demographic of the respondents, while the second part will collect information on their attitude and perceptions. Teachers and students will be subjected to answer the questionnaires. The teachers will be asked about their disciplinary strategies and their perceptions regarding bullies, while the students will be asked about their engagement and disengagement in bullying and if the disciplinary styles of their teachers have any influence on their actions. A five-point Likert Scale will be used in measuring their answers. In the Likert technique, the degree of agreement or disagreement) is given a numerical value ranging from one to five, thus a total numerical value can be calculated from all the responses (Underwood, 2004). The data analysis technique to be used is the percentage and weighted mean analysis.

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