title: Development of a measure of the experience of being bullied in youth.
abstract: The Personal Experiences Checklist (PECK) was developed to provide a multidimensional assessment of a young person's personal experience of being bullied that covered the full range of bullying behaviors, including covert relational forms of bullying and cyber bullying. A sample of 647 school children were used to develop the scale, and a 2nd sample of 218 children completed the PECK and a battery of measures of bullying (including peer nomination), anxiety, depression, and self-esteem, to provide validity evidence. Test-retest reliability was assessed in a further sample of 78 students. Four factors emerged from a principal axis factoring consistent with the domains of relational-verbal bullying, cyber bullying, physical bullying, and bullying based on culture and were confirmed with confirmatory factor analysis. The data also supported a higher order bullying factor with direct effects on these 4 factors. All PECK scales showed good to excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α range = .78-.91) and adequate test-retest reliability (range r = .61-.86). Most, but not all, expected relations were found with alternative methods of assessing bullying and measures of psychopathology. Taken together, the PECK provides a promising comprehensive and behaviorally focused dimensional measure of bullying.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. caroline.hunt@sydney.edu.au
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hunt
authors.forename: Lorna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: Ronald M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Rapee
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D058445:Bullying / Q000523:psychology*; D057189:Checklist; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D011581:Psychological Tests / Q000592:standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012574:Schools; D057566:Self Report / Q000592:standards*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*