THE BULLYING CLASSROOM CHECK-UP: COACHING

TEACHERS TO DETECT, PREVENT, AND RESPOND TO

BULLYING USING MIXED-REALITY SIMULATION
ELISE PAS, TRACY WAASDORP, & CATHERINE BRADSHAW
(INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BULLYING PREVENTION, 2019)

What is the Bullying Classroom Check-Up?

• Adapted and integrated the Classroom Check-
Up coaching model (Reinke, Herman, & Sprick,
2011) and TeachLivE mixed-reality simulator
(Dieker, Hynes, Hughes, & Smith, 2008) to
improve teacher detection, prevention, and
response to bullying.
• Includes: ongoing coaching support, four 1-page
“Bullying Bulletins” for psychoeducation, and
guided practice with the coach and a peer to
practice new skills in a mixed-reality simulator.
• Simulated practice occurs on three occasions
and teachers receive immediate feedback from
the coach and paired teacher.

Why the Bullying Classroom Check-Up is Needed:

• Existing evidence-based bullying intervention models target student behaviors, but not the teachers, who
struggle to detect and respond to bullying in the classroom.
• Although there are known effective bullying prevention practices, teachers still do not feel confident or
effective intervening with bullying; teacher non-response translates into students’ perceiving teachers do
not care. Thus, there is not enough focus on training or supporting teachers.
• Coaching , though effective at improving teacher practices, has never been applied to bullying . Most
coaching relies on teachers practicing in their classrooms, making immediate feedback challenging.

Testing the Bullying Classroom Check-Up:

• Worked with 5 Maryland middle schools to develop and
test the Bullying Classroom Check-Up
• 78 classroom teachers were randomly assigned within
schools, to serve as comparisons, or receive coaching and
guided practice in the simulator
• Experimentally tested the impacts of coaching on teacher
practices, beliefs, and student behaviors

Contact: Elise Pas (epas@jhu.edu)

Catherine Bradshaw (cbradsh1@jhu.edu)
Key Findings:
Teacher report: Teachers completed a measure regarding perceptions of bullying prevention efforts,
witnessing of bullying, and their responses to bullying.
• Coached teachers had higher odds of reporting responding to bullying witnessed in a few different
ways:
o By talking with other staff (OR = 3.96, p < .05)
o Referring to a guidance counselor (OR = 5.87, p < .05)
o By intervening with the perpetrator of bullying (OR = 4.83, p <.05) and with the victim
(OR = 3.51, p = .05).
• Coached teachers had significantly lower scores/more disagreement with the statement, “adults at
the school are doing enough to stop/prevent bullying” (F = 8.83, p = .004; Mcontrol = 2.83 (SE = .095)
Mintervention= 2.50 (SE = .096).
• Statistical trends suggested that coached teachers were more likely to detect (a) teasing, picking
on, making fun (OR = 2.97, p =.09); (b) hitting, slapping, or kicking (OR = 3.10, p =.08); and (c)
ignoring/leaving out (OR = 2.52, p =.09) and overall bullying in their classroom (OR = 2.65, p =.08).
Classroom Observations: Research-hired observers visited each teacher’s classroom for 15 minutes on
three occasions and recorded tallies of proactive behavior management, approvals, presence of positive
behavioral supports in the classroom and instances of student aggression, without knowledge of which
teachers were and were not coached.
• No intervention effects were detected.

Conclusions and Next Steps

• The improvement of teachers’ responding to bullying through coaching is an extremely
promising finding.
o As opposed to using punitive responses, which are ineffective at stemming
bullying, coached teachers reported referring students for guidance and also
intervened on behalf of the victim. These responses will likely improve the
students’ perceptions of the overall class climate.
o Research shows that teachers often focus on the perpetrators, rather than victims,
of bullying (Burger, Strohmeier, Spröber, Bauman, & Rigby, 2015; Yoon et al., 2016),
highlighting the importance of the BCCU and these findings.
• The trends indicating that coached teachers witnessed more bullying behaviors in the
absence of any observed increases in student aggression levels suggests that teachers
improved in their detection of bullying behaviors.
o Notably, this was even the case for the more covert behavior, including
ignoring/leaving others out, often more challenging for teachers to detect
(Bauman & Del Rio, 2006; Chen, Cheng, & Ho, 2015).
o For the overt bullying, it is possible teachers prior to or without coaching have
difficulty deciphering between play and real fighting (e.g., Richards, 2016).
• Additional materials, including universal teacher professional development and student-
focused content are in development to further complement and promote generalization.

September 12, 2018