The effect of acceptance and commitment therapy oriented psycho-education program on peer bullying

Purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Oriented Psycho-Educational Program" on peer bullying. Dependent variables of this experimental study are Personal Information Form scores and Peer Bullying Scale (PBS) scores, while; independent variable of this study is ACT oriented Psycho-Educational Program. This research was conducted with 24 high school students who were randomly chosen among the students attend to High School affiliated to National Education Ministery in Çorum during 2017-2018 academic year. As data collection tool, Peer Bullying Scale were used in this study. As research model of this study, a 2x3 split-plot (complex) experimental design, including pre-test, post-test and follow-up measures for experimental and control groups, was used. ACT Oriented Psycho-Educational 10-week Program developed by the researcher was applied to experimental group which was constituted according to the scores of Peer Bullying Scale (PBS). No action was taken to the students in control group. The scale was administered to both experimental and control groups, as the pre-test 2 weeks before the sessions started, and as the post-test 2 weeks after the last session, and also it is used for the follow-up test for determining the permanence of the experimental manipulation, 2 months after the post-test. For the data analysis, repeated measures two-way ANOVA was conducted for investigating whether there is a significant difference between groups and measures. SPSS 20 program was used for the statistical data analysis. As a result of the research, it was observed that the adolescents in the experimental group "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Oriented Psycho-Education Program" were significantly effective in reducing peer bullying, and this effect did not change in the follow-up measures. There was no significant difference in the scores obtained from the pre-test, post-test and follow-up test scores of the participants in the control groups.