TPC-Journal-V5-Issue4

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 4 495 the STAC strategies to intervene. After the group conducted the role-play a second time with the peer-advocate intervening, trainers facilitated a discussion processing the STAC strategy utilized and suggesting other strategies and the possibility of linking more than one strategy together. Students practiced all strategies through four different role-plays covering the different types of bullying discussed during the didactic component of the training. Each role-play lasted approximately 5 minutes. All peer advocates who participated in the training were part of a small group and invited to be an actor in a role-play or practice utilizing a strategy. Training Conclusion. The training concluded with the small groups coming together and each student sharing his or her favorite STAC strategy, signing a petition indicating “bullying stops with me,” and receiving a certificate of participation. The training conclusion lasted 15 minutes. After the STAC training, the school counselors at each school provided ongoing informal support to students, including checking in with them individually or in small groups. Results Data were examined for extreme cases that might impact the results of the analyses including skew and kurtosis. We did not identify any outliers and all variables were within the normal range. Paired sample t-tests were conducted to examine the change in each item and the total scale score from pre- training to post-training (we selected the paired sample t-test as it is the appropriate statistical test to use when comparing means in correlated, matched pairs samples). All analyses were conducted at p < .01 to control for Type I error. Means, standard deviations, t values, p values, and Cohen’s d values are presented in Table 1. Re- sults indicated participants reported significant increases on all items with the exception of identifica- tion of what physical bullying looks like. Examination of the means suggests a ceiling effect; that is, students’ baseline ability to identify physical bullying was already quite high ( M = 3.7, SD = .49). There also was a significant change for the total scale score from pre-test to post-test. As seen in Table 1, with the exception of the physical bullying item, all effect sizes were in the medium to large range. Examina- tion of the effect sizes revealed that the STAC strategy “asking for help” and two confidence items “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” had the lowest effect sizes among the items. Discussion The purpose of this study was to serve as a first step in extending the literature evaluating the immediate impact of a brief, stand-alone bystander psychoeducation program in a middle school setting on increasing student ability to identify what different types of bullying look like, student knowledge of specific strategies that can be used to intervene appropriately, and student confidence in their ability to intervene. Overall, results supported the STAC program as a promising method for equipping bystanders to be advocates in addressing bullying at school. More specifically, after completing the training, students reported a significant increase in their ability to identify what different types of bullying look like, knowledge of the STAC strategies and general confidence intervening in bullying situations. This was true for identification of different types of bullying (i.e., verbal, social/emotional, and cyberbullying), knowledge of the STAC strategies (i.e., stealing the show, turning it over, accompanying others, and coaching compassion), and confidence in intervening