Abstract:

Research in psychology has highlighted the effects that school bullying can produce on students’ physical and mental health, as well as behavioural problems. In this regard, some studies find links between school bullying victimization and lower academic performance, higher absenteeism, or academic dropout. Furthermore, literature points out that the damage caused by exposure to bullying situations will depend on the victim’s perception of it. Based on the above, the present study proposes to analyse the association between school bullying victimization, the perception of its severity and the low school performance operationalized by grade retention.

With this aim, 662 students, aged between 14 and 18 (M = 15.38, SD = 1.03), and gender-balanced, 332 girls (50.2%) and 330 boys (49.80%), participated with prior parents’ consent and voluntarily. The sample completed individually, and anonymously an ad hoc questionnaire in order to measure sociodemographic variables (gender, age, academic year, school localization, type of educational centre and grade repetition) and the UPF-4 scale to assess school bullying. The UPF-4 scale contains 26 items that measure school bullying victimization behaviours distributed into 4 factors (psychological bullying, physical bullying, exclusion, and relational bullying), the frequency with which these occur, and, for the aim of the study, a measure of perceived severity was added for each of the behaviours.

On the one hand, results show a significant higher tendency of grade retention for boys compared to girls, as well as a greater tendency for students aged16-18 compared to those aged 14-15. On the other hand, this variable relationship with the perceived severity of school bullying behaviours shows that those who perceive a greater severity both in general and in all subtypes of school bullying (psychological bullying, physical bullying, exclusion, and relational bullying) have a lower tendency to grade repetition. However, with regard of self-reported school bullying victimization, grade retention occurs significantly more frequently for those students who experience physical and relational bullying. Thus, the results indicate that those students who are more victimized by school bullying have a greater tendency to grade retention, while the perception of school bullying severity shows an opposite tendency. Bearing in mind the limitations, future lines of research are proposed and the implications for teaching practice are discussed.

Keywords:

School bullying, academic performance, academic consequences, harm severity perception.