School bullying scale: A study of developing a valid and reliable assessment instrument

The purpose of this research was to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure bullying and cyberbullying behaviors of secondary school students in a multi-dimensional way. In line with the validity studies of the scale, expert opinion was initially, sought for content validity. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were performed for construct validity. The data of the EFA group were collected from a total of 400 secondary school students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades in Gaziantep. As a result of two separate EFAs for bullying and victimization, it was found that the scale consisted of 20 items with a single factor structure with factor loading values of 0.35 and above. The data of the DFA group were obtained from a total of 505 students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades in different secondary schools in Gaziantep. The 20-item scale was used as a data collection tool. Bullying and victimization scales, each consisting of 20 items and a single factor structure, were tested separately with two independent confirmatory factor analyses. As a result of confirmatory factor analysis, it was found that the bullying and victimization models tested had good fit values. For the reliability of the scale, the internal consistency coefficient of the bullying and victimization items was calculated in both the EFA and CFA groups. For the items of the EFA data, the internal consistency coefficient of the bullying was 0.88, and the internal consistency coefficient of the victimization items was 0.88. For the items of the CFA data, the internal consistency coefficient of the bullying items was 0.76, and the internal consistency coefficient of the victimization items was 0.83. The findings show that the School Bullying Scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool to assess bullying and cyberbullying in a multi-dimensional way. The School Bullying Scale can be used by secondary school teachers, school counselors and researchers aiming to fight against bullying in secondary school to measure bullying behaviors in secondary school. Keywords: Peer bullying, cyberbullying, middle school students