title: Getting precise and pragmatic about the assessment of bullying: the development of the California Bullying Victimization Scale.
abstract: Accurate assessment of bullying is essential to intervention planning and evaluation. Limitations to many currently available self-report measures of bullying victimization include a lack of psychometric information, use of the emotionally laden term "bullying" in definition-first approaches to self-report surveys, and not assessing all components of the definition of bullying (chronicity, intentionality, and imbalance of power) in behavioral-based self-report methods. To address these limitations, we developed the California Bullying Victimization Scale (CBVS), which is a self-report scale that measures the three-part definition of bullying without the use of the term bully. We examined test-retest reliability and the concurrent and predictive validity of the CBVS across students in Grades 5-12 in four central California schools. Concurrent validity was assessed by comparing the CBVS with a common, definition-based bullying victimization measure. Predictive validity was examined through the co-administration of measures of psychological well-being. Analysis by grade and gender are included. Results support the test-retest reliability of the CBVS over a 2-week period. The CBVS was significantly, positively correlated with another bullying assessment and was related in expected directions to measures of well-being. Implications for differentiating peer victimization and bullying victimization via self-report measures are discussed.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106-9490, USA. efelix@education.ucsb.edu
authors.forename: Erika D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Felix
authors.forename: Jill D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Sharkey
authors.forename: Jennifer Greif
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Green
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Furlong
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tanigawa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D058445:Bullying / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires