Monitoring Elementary School Teachers’ Approaches to Handling Bullying Among Students

The aim of the study was to map teachers’ preferred approaches to handling bullying among students. The scaled Handling Bullying Questionnaire (Bauman et al., 2008) was used. The structure of the research tool was determined using exploratory factor analysis indicating the existence of 5 dimensions. The good fit of the model to the actual data was verified using confirmatory factor analysis returning very good values of the good fit indices (CFI, TLI, RMSEA, SRMR, GFI). 696 teachers of the elementary school second level participated in the research. Their mean age was 46.53 years (SD = 9.34) and the mean length of their experience was 21.10 years (SD = 10.44). Male teachers scored statistically significantly higher on the dimension „Disciplining the bully“; teachers who had obtained their qualification through a supplementary pedagogical study scored statistically significantly lower on the dimension „Ignoring the incident“ and higher on the dimensions „Enlisting other adults“ and „Disciplining the bully“; class teachers scored statistically significantly higher on the dimension „Working with the bully“; teachers having received anti-bullying training within their continuing education scored statistically significantly higher on the dimensions „Working with the bully“ and „Enlisting other adults“; teachers with functions aimed at sorting out students’ problem behaviour scored the lowest on the dimension „Ignoring the incident“. Neglectful and weak effects were identified of the differences in resulting values. Also, a weak direct dependence appeared between working with the bully as the preferred approach and the length of teachers’ experience.