TPC-Journal-V5-Issue4

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 4 491 The final sample consisted of 74 students (51.4% female and 48.6% male), 49 from one school and 25 from the other school. Participants ranged in age from 12–15 ( M = 13.42 and SD = .90), and were primarily Caucasian (89.2%), with 4.1% African American, 4.1% Asian American or Pacific Islander, and 2.6% Hispanic. The sample was similar to the total student population, with the exception that Hispanic students were underrepresented in the study sample with 2.6% of students reporting their ethnicity as Hispanic compared to 8.6% in the student population. Power calculations indicated the current sample size should yield power of > 0.80 to detect a small effect size. Procedures A separate psychoeducation training was conducted at each school. Students at each school completed a 90-minute training during classroom time. The program, which is described in the Psychoeducation Program section below, was held in the school’s library or an available classroom and was conducted by graduate students in a master’s in counseling program. Two graduate students conducted the audiovisual presentation, and an additional two students were available to help facilitate activities and role-plays discussed below in the Psychoeducation Program section. Participants completed a pre- and post-test to measure the effectiveness of the training. The pre-test was conducted immediately prior to the training and the post-test was conducted immediately after the 90-minute training. All study procedures were approved by the university Institutional Review Board as well as the school district’s review board. Instruments The Student-Advocates Pre- and Post-Scale was developed by the researchers to measure the effectiveness of the STAC training. The questionnaire is comprised of 11 items rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from “I totally disagree” to “I totally agree.” Items were developed to measure the effectiveness of the training in increasing ability to identify what different types of bullying look like, knowledge of STAC strategies and confidence in intervening to stop bullying. The following items measured ability to identify different types of bullying: “I know what verbal bullying looks like,” “I know what social/emotional bullying looks like,” “I know what cyberbullying looks like,” and “I know what physical bullying looks like.” Knowledge of STAC strategies was measured by the following items: “I know how to use humor to get attention away from the student being bullied,” “I know how to reach out to the student being bullied,” “I know how to ask for help from an adult and report bullying at my school,” and “I know how to offer suggestions for empathy when someone is bullying a student.” Finally, confidence in intervening items included: “I feel confident in my ability to do something helpful to decrease bullying at my school,” “I feel comfortable being an advocate to stop bullying at my school,” and “I feel like I can make a positive difference against bullying at my school.” Finally, a Total Scale was created by summing all 11 items. Cronbach’s alphas for the Total Scale was a = .77. Content validity of the questionnaire was established through professional review of the items. The three professional reviewers selected were a school counselor, a school teacher and a university faculty member with experience in instrument design. The items were generated by the first author to reflect the content of the training. The first author then elicited feedback from the three professionals. The feedback included revising language and formatting to be developmentally appropriate for this age group. The three reviewers agreed that the items appeared to measure the three areas described above. The pre-test was administered immediately prior to the training, and the post-test was administered immediately after the training. The pre- and post-tests were administered 90 minutes apart.