RESEARCH ARTICLE

A Comparison of the Gatehouse Bullying Scale and the Peer Relations Questionnaire for Students in Secondary School
LYNDAL BOND, PhDa SARAH WOLFE, Grad Cert Clin Research Methodsb MICHELLE TOLLIT, MEdPsychc HELEN BUTLER, BA(Hons), Dip Ed, G Dip in Adol Healthd GEORGE PATTON, MD FRANZCPe

ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Bullying occurs in all schools. Measuring bullying in schools is complicated because both denitions of bullying and methods for measuring bullying vary. This study compared a brief 12-item Gatehouse Bullying Scale (GBS) with items drawn from the Peer Relations Questionnaire (PRQ), a well-established bullying questionnaire to measure the concurrent validity of the GBS. METHODS: Year 8 secondary school students (14 years of age) in metropolitan and regional Victoria, Australia, completed questionnaires assessing being teased, being deliberately left out, had rumors spread about oneself, and/or being physically threatened or hurt. RESULTS: The prevalence of bullying using GBS and PRQ was 57% and 61%, respectively. Percent agreement between the 2 measures was high. Agreement adjusted for chance was moderate (kappa 0.5). The GBS had good to moderate test-retest reliability (rho 0.65). CONCLUSIONS: The GBS is a short, reliable tool measuring the occurrence of bullying in schools. As well as a global estimate of bullying, the GBS provides estimates of 2 covert and 2 overt types of bullying which can be useful for schools to better plan interventions dealing with school bullying. Keywords: bullying; mental health; school counseling services.
Citation: Bond L, Wolfe S, Tollit M, Butler H, Patton G. A comparison of the Gatehouse Bullying Scale and the Peer Relations Questionnaire for students in secondary school. J Sch Health. 2007; 77: 75-79.

a Research Director, Adolescent Health and Social Environments Program, (lyndal.bond@rch.org.au), Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Childrens Hospital, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, 2 Gatehouse St, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia. b c

Plain Language Officer, Ethics Office (RCH), (sarah.wolfe@rch.org.au), Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Childrens Hospital, 2 Gatehouse St, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia.

Survey Manager, beyondblue Schools Research Initiative, (michelle.tollit@mcri.edu.au), Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Childrens Hospital, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, 2 Gatehouse St, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia.

d Manager Professional Learning, Adolescent Health and Social Environments Program, (helen.butler@mcri.edu.au), Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Childrens Hospital, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, 2 Gatehouse St, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia. e Professor, Director of Adolescent Health Research, (george.patton@rch.org.au), Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Childrens Hospital, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, 2 Gatehouse St, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia.

Address correspondence to: Lyndal Bond, Research Director, Adolescent Health and Social Environments Program, (lyndal.bond@rch.org.au), Centre for Adolescent Health, 2 Gatehouse St, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia. The Gatehouse Project was supported by grants from the Queens Trust for Young Australians, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, National Health and Medical Research Council, and Department of Human Services, Victoria, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Sydney Myer Fund and the Melbourne Catholic Education Office. Dr Bond is funded by a Victorian Health Promotion Foundation Public Health Fellowship.

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hysical, psychological, or verbal bullying is common in all schools.1-3 It is known to be a signicant source of stress for the victims causing physical and emotional problems in the short and long term.3-7 Measuring bullying behaviors in schools is, however, complicated by the fact that there is neither a universally accepted operational denition of bullying8-12 nor a commonly accepted method to gather the information. While direct observation from teachers or adults and peer report of bullying have been used, self-report is the most commonly used method to measure the extent and nature of bullying in schools,9,12 with some instruments providing a denition of bullying7,13-15 and others not doing so. As differences exist between what young people and researchers consider to be the most important dening characteristics of bullying,7,8 there is debate as to whether a denition should be provided when measuring this construct.11,16 To avoid the problems and inconsistencies associated with providing denitions of bullying, others have simply asked individuals to indicate how often they have experienced a list of specied negative and harassing acts.10,17 It is argued that the latter technique does not require respondents to make a judgment as to whether they have been bullied based on a specied denition.17,18 A further limitation of many bullying scales is their length, for example, the Peer Relations Questionnaire (PRQ) has 7 sections with 33 items specically about bullying and takes approximately 35 minutes to complete.15 While the length may be warranted and appropriate where the focus is solely on assessing the prevalence and severity of bullying in a school, the length of these questionnaires can be a burden on the respondents. This may be especially problematic in studies also wanting to assess a broader range of social and environmental risk and protective factors for young peoples health and education outcomes. In response to both the issue of denition and length, a short (12 questions) bullying scale, the Gatehouse Bullying Scale (GBS), was designed to be suitable for students in early secondary school. This measure has been shown to be related to other measures of social attachments, school engagement, and anxiety and depressive symptoms.3,19 Victimization as assessed through this measure has also shown to be predictive of subsequent anxiety/depressive symptoms.3 The aim of this current study was to examine the concurrent validity of the GBS constructed for use in the Gatehouse Project19-22 with a subset of questions from the widely used PRQ15 (study 1) and to assess test-retest reliability of the GBS (study 2).
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METHODS Study 1 Participants The sample consisted of 2463 year 8 students recruited in 2001 from 25 secondary schools located in metropolitan and regional Victoria, Australia, participating in the Gatehouse Project.19,21 Data presented in this study are based on 2414 students who completed all of the PRQ and GBS questions. Measures The Gatehouse Bullying Scale. The GBS comprises 12 items assessing overt and covert types of victimization. Participants are asked whether they had been teased or called names, had rumors spread about them, been deliberately left out of things, and had recently been physically threatened or hurt. They were not asked if they had been bullied. The response sets for these questions are presented in Table 1. Respondents were classied as being bullied if they responded yes to one or more of the negative acts and were classied as bullied frequently if they indicated that they had experienced one or more of these types of bullying on most days. The Peer Relations Questionnaire. Six key items used to measure bullying were drawn from the PRQ, preceded by a denition of bullying as per the original questionnaire: We call it bullying when someone is deliberately and repeatedly hurting or frightening someone weaker than themselves for no good reason. This may be done in different ways: by hurtful teasing, threatening actions or gestures, name calling or hitting or kicking.15,23 The 6 questions and the response sets are provided in Table 1. The prevalence of students being bullied using the PRQ was calculated in 2 ways. Participants were classied as being bullied this year if they answered yes to the rst question. In keeping with the GBS scoring, participants were also classied as having experienced bullying of any type if they said they experienced one or more of the separate types of bullying listed in the PRQ sometimes or often. Participants were classied as bullied frequently if they indicated that they had often experienced one or more of the types of bullying. Demographic Information. Information about students gender, country of birth, language spoken at home, and family structure were also collected. Procedure The surveys were administered in regular class times and generally took 40 minutes to complete. Research staff supervised administration of the survey. The survey included a number of other questions about health risk behaviors and school climate
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Table 1. Gatehouse Bullying Scale and the Peer Relations Questionnaire

Gatehouse Bullying Scale 1 a) Has anyone teased you or called you names recently? 1 b) How often? Most days/About once a week/Less than once a week 1 c) How upsetting was it when you were teased? Not at all/A bit/I was quite upset 2 a) Has anyone spread rumors about you recently? 2 b) How often? Most days/About once a week/Less than once a week 2 c) How upsetting were the rumors? Not at all/ A bit/ I was quite upset 3 a) Have you been deliberately left out of things recently? 3 b) How often? Most days/About once a week/Less than once a week 3 c) How upsetting was it being left out of things? Not at all/ A bit/ I was quite upset 4 a) Have you been threatened physically or actually hurt by another student recently? 4 b) How often? Most days/About once a week/Less than once a week 4 c) How upsetting was it being threatened or hurt? Not at all/ A bit/ I was quite upset Peer Relations Questionnaire We call it bullying when someone is deliberately and repeatedly hurting or frightening someone weaker than themselves for no good reason. This may be done in different ways: by hurtful teasing, threatening actions or gestures, name calling, or hitting or kicking 1 Have you been bullied by any student this year at school? No/Yes, only once/Yes, a few times/Yes, lots of times Did any of these things happen to you while you were being bullied this year? 2 Being teased in an unpleasant way? Never/Sometimes/Often 3 Being called hurtful names Never/Sometimes/Often 4 Being left out of things on purpose Never/Sometimes/Often 5 Being threatened with harm Never/Sometimes/Often 6 Being hit or kicked Never/Sometimes/Often

(not the subject of this paper). Because the PRQ dened bullying, the PRQ questions were placed after the GBS questions on the questionnaire. Study 2 Test-retest reliability of the GBS was assessed as part of a larger study, examining survey methods (computer-based vs paper and pencil completed questionnaires), in 3 schools with medium to low socioeconomic backgrounds in metropolitan Melbourne in 2001. Data are presented from 48 year 8 students from one of these schools. Procedure Students completed the survey described above (excluding the PRQ) at school on 2 occasions, about 3 weeks apart. The survey took approximately 40 minutes to complete. Research staff supervised the administration of the survey. Ethics Approval For both studies, all year 8 students were invited to participate. Student participation was voluntary and required written parental consent. Ethics approval was granted by the Royal Childrens Hospital Ethics in Human Research Committee, the Victorian Department of Education, and the Catholic Education Ofce. Method of Analysis Percent agreement (the sum of the values on the diagonal divided by N) was calculated.24 Agreement
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corrected for chance was assessed using kappa. Cohens rule of thumb for interpreting the kappa statistic (0-0.2 slight, 0.21-0.4 fair, 0.41-0.60 moderate, 0.61-0.80 substantial, and 0.81-1.0 almost perfect agreement) was used. All data were analyzed using Stata 9.0.25 These agreement statistics and Spearmans rho were also calculated to assess test-retest reliability. RESULTS In study 1, the response rate was 70%, and in study 2, 41% of students provided data for both times. For study 1, males comprised 47% of the

Table 2. A Comparison of the Prevalence and Frequency of Bullying Using the PRQ and the GBS
% PRQ, N (%) GBS, N (%) Agreement Kappa Bullied 1467 (60.8) Frequently 401 (16.6) Teased or called names 1275 (52.8) Frequently* 299 (12.4) Left out of things 616 (25.5) on purpose Frequently* 129 (5.3) Threatened physically 688 (28.5) or actually hurt Frequently* 159 (6.6) Have had rumors NA spread about you Frequently*
*Using weighted kappa. NA, not asked.

1365 414 1106 334 462

(56.6) (17.2) (45.8) (13.9) (19.1)

75.6 85.9 76.6 82.5 85.4 90.1 80.7 87.2

0.50 0.50 0.53 0.52 0.58 0.54 0.45 0.42

96 (4.0) 366 (15.2) 68 (2.8) 520 (21.5) 58 (2.4)

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Table 3. Test-Retest Correlations and Agreement for Self-Reported Types of Bullying (N = 48)
% Bullied Time 1 Teased or called names Left out of things on purpose Threatened physically or actually hurt Have had rumors spread about you Any bullying Bullied on most days Was upset a lot by bullying 33.3 12.5 10.4 25.0 50.0 16.7 14.6 % Bullied Time 2 31.3 12.5 6.3 10.4 35.4 4.2 10.4 % Agreement 81.3 91.7 91.7 85.4 81.3 87.5 87.5 Kappa 0.57 0.62 0.46 0.52 0.63 0.36 0.43 Spearmans Rho 0.57 0.62 0.48 0.59 0.65 0.47 0.44

sample, and in study 2, 23% of the samples were males. About 90% of both samples were born in Australia and about 80% of students lived with both parents. For study 1, 19% spoke a language other than English at home compared to 25% of those in study 2. Study 1: Agreement Between the GBS and the PRQ Table 2 shows the prevalence and frequency of bullying as assessed by the 2 measures and agreement between these measures. Prevalence was higher for the PRQ measures than the GBS measures. There was moderate agreement between the PRQ and GBS for bullying in general and with the specic types of bullying. Study 2: Test-Retest Reliability of the GBS Table 3 shows the test-retest statistics for study 2. There was moderate to good agreement for the GBS measures over time. DISCUSSION This study compared 2 bullying scales completed by the same student sample and found moderate agreement between them both for a general assessment of being bullied and for specic types of victimization. This study also found that there was moderate to good agreement over time using the GBS. The few studies that have compared different techniques or criteria to measure bullying report different prevalence estimates depending on the measures.17,18 For example, Salin17 found that higher prevalence rates were obtained when participants were provided with a list of negative acts than when they were provided with a denition of bullying and asked to indicate whether they had been subjected to such behaviors. Contrary to expectation and unlike those previous studies17,18 above, the current study found slightly higher rates of bullying when using the PRQ, which has a denition of bullying than when using the GBS, which used negative acts. This nding may be explained by the different time frames used in the
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questionnaires. In the GBS, students were asked about negative acts they had experienced recently, while the PRQ asked students about bullying this year. As students completed the survey late in the school year, the latter questions covered a longer period than those in the GBS. In the construction of the GBS, a time period much shorter than a year had been chosen for 2 reasons: rst, the recall of events is best within a 3-month period,26,27 and second, a scale that has a shorter time period will be more sensitive to change and thus more useful for monitoring the success of interventions focusing on reducing bullying. A further limitation to comparing the prevalence of bullying from these questionnaires was that the number and wording for the negative acts were not identical. To compare the negative acts between the 2 scales, it was necessary to combine some of the items in the PRQ. Notwithstanding these limitations, this study indicates that the GBS is a short, reliable tool to measure the occurrence of bullying in schools. The GBS also provides an assessment of the emotional impact that bullying has on students. Both estimates have been shown to prospectively predict emotional distress in secondary school students.3 As well as a global estimate of bullying, the GBS provides estimates of 2 covert and 2 overt types of bullying that can be useful for schools to better plan interventions addressing school bullying. The timeframe over which bullying is assessed (recently) allows for the assessment of change after implementation of such interventions. Because of its brevity, this tool is useful when a number of outcomes are being monitored. This makes the GBS a useful component for monitoring processes, as schools are increasingly expected to address a range of school environment factors impacting on well-being and learning.

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