A survey can be defined as “a data-collection methods in which
individuals answer specific questions about their behavior, attitudes, beliefs,
or emotions” (Mrug, 2010). Surveys are commonly used in several fields such as
“social and behavioral sciences, political sciences, public health, and
business” (Mrug, 2010). An attitude
survey will assess “attitudes in a target population, for example, attitudes
towards consumer products (consumer surveys), evaluations of past experiences
with products or services (customer satisfaction surveys), evaluations of
policies and institutions (public opinion surveys), or evaluations of the state
of the economy (consumer confidence surveys)” (Scholderer, 2011). Bullying is an existing issue that is of
interest to me that I created an attitude survey on. This paper will explain
the purpose of the survey I developed as well as discuss the preliminary design
issues that I experienced while creating the survey. This paper will also describe the specific
instruction for administering, scoring, and interpreting the attitude survey on
bullying.
Purpose of Survey
Bullying is an “intentional harm-doing or harassment that is
directed toward vulnerable targets and typically repeated. Bullying encompasses a wide range of
malicious aggressive behaviors, including physical violence, verbal mockery,
threats, ostracism, and rumors spread either orally, or by other means of
communication, such as the internet” ("bullying," 2014). Bullying has become an increasing problem
with school-aged children that has become a major concern to me because my
child had been the victim in school.
The purpose of the survey I created was to assess the attitudes that
children have on bullying. The questions
were also designed to assess a child’s perception of bullying as it relates to
the school environment. Assessing the
attitudes and perceptions of the students on bullying can give school
administration a better understanding of how they children are feeling and can
offer guidance as to how to resolve the issues of bullying in school. Children are supposed to feel safe in school
and bullying takes away from that feeling of being safe. The attitude survey on bullying will pinpoint
just how serious the issue is within the school.
Preliminary Design Issues
The target audience for the attitude survey on bullying should be
the seventh and eighth grade students because I believe that they are the
students that have had the most experience at the school and can give accurate
accounts on their feelings towards bullying.
During the last week of school the survey should be handed out during
homeroom class. A significant issue that
occurred was the initial plan for the types of questions that I would ask to
receive precise and attentive replies, therefore I complied sixteen questions
that should take no more than five to ten minutes to complete. The survey uses the Likert scale to measure
attitude with possible answers to questions being “strongly agree, agree,
neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree” (Jamieson, 2008). The survey will be a general measure of the
student’s attitudes towards bullying on a five point scale and their
experiences at the school which can allow the school to determine how serious
the bullying is so they can take the necessary steps to address the issue for
the upcoming semester. A significant
issue that occurred was the initial plan for the types of questions that I
would ask to receive precise and attentive replies.
Administration, Scoring, and Interpretation
The survey should be administered by school personnel, preferably
a guidance counselor because they can explain in more details the purpose of
the survey and what they hope to accomplish with the help of the students,
however the homeroom teacher could also administer the survey to the students
in their homeroom providing the same details because of the unavailability of
the guidance counselors in schools. An
aspect of the Likert scale is their directionality, meaning “the categories of
response may be increasingly positive or increasing negative” (Jamieson,
2008). The target of the responses have
directionality, which means that a rating of strongly agree will correspond to
a more favored attitude against bullying.
In order to have accurate results on scoring it is important that all of
the students in the seventh and eighth grade complete the survey. The scores will be calculated to provide an
interpretation of how serious the students perceive bullying at the
school. The score can be interpreted by
using a point scale “where 1=strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = neutral, 4 =
disagree, and 5 = strongly disagree” (Jamieson, 2008). Based on this point scale it can be
interpreted that students whom agree or
strongly agree to the questions will produce low scores when could mean that
they may have either experienced being
bullied or witnessed someone being bullied therefore prompting those responses
which could bring out a negative perception towards bullying at the school.
Conclusion
Attitude surveys are designed to assess how people feel about
certain subjects, such as bullying.
Bullying occurs when a person is consistently exposed to “malicious and
aggressive” behavior for long periods of time which is increasingly occurring
in schools across the country and has become a major concern to parents as well
as educational professionals and political officials; however the issues have
yet to be addressed properly within the schools. The survey I created uses the Likert scale
method of scoring to assess the attitudes of students in regards to bullying at
school. The purpose of the survey was to
help school administration gain a better understanding of how the students feel
about bullying and the possible effects that bullying has on the learning
environment.
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