ICT Supporting The Assessment, Explanation, and Reduction Possibilities of Severity of Violence Experienced by Secondary Pupils

Author(s):

Ton Mooij(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

16. ICT in Education and Training

Format:

Paper

Session Information

16 SES 05 A, ICT as a Tool to Reduce Violence and Support the Disadvantaged

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

11:00-12:30

Room:

FCT - Aula 12

Chair:

Ton Mooij

Contribution

Violence assessment can be improved by Item Response Theory, i.e. ordinal Mokken Scale Analysis, as is shown in international research. Moreover, ICT can assist to collect relevant data with schools and pupils, in large-scale ways, and feed-back the results to schools to promote their school safety policy and evaluate the desired safety effects with their pupils. The research question is: Does Mokken Scale Analysis of secondary pupils’ experience of violence result in an adequate Mokken scale, what is the relevance of individual pupil and contextual school variables in the explanation of severity of violence experienced, and how could the results be returned to schools in effective ways? A theoretical two-level model is developed in which personal, family and educational variables explain the severity of violence experienced by pupils.

Method

The method used is secondary analysis of Dutch national data collected from secondary school pupils in 2008 by means of a digital school safety survey. A first random sample (n1=14,388) is used to develop the scale; a second sample (n2=14,350) is meant to cross-validate the results. Pupils’ experience of violence is assessed by 29 items reflecting six types of antisocial or aggressive behaviour. Specific ICT is developed and used to feed-back the results to schools in various ways.

Expected Outcomes

A Mokken scale of 25 items meets the requirements of monotone homogeneity and double monotonicity. Ordering is invariant between: Boys and girls; being born in the Netherlands or not; and feeling at home in the Netherlands or not. These results are cross-validated in sample 2. The latent construct concerns pupils’ experience of violence in terms of severity, varying from verbal and mild physical violence (relatively most frequent), to combinations of social, material and severe physical violence, to very severe and serious sexual violence (relatively least frequent). Furthermore, multiple regression analyses reveal that a pupil who is older, a boy, and born in the Netherlands, who feels at home in another country, does not have an intact family, is not religious, is enrolled in the highest educational track, and is getting lower marks in the school subjects Dutch and mathematics experiences more severe violence than other pupils. Relevant school variables are various composite or mean pupil variables; mean severity of violence experienced at school is most important in relative terms. Main results from the digital survey were feed-backed to the schools by specifically designed ICT. It became clear that schools need much support to evaluate and use the results in adequate ways.

References

Mayer, M.J., & Furlong, M.J. (2010). How safe are our schools? Educational Researcher, 39(1), 16-26. Michie, C., & Cooke, D.J. (2006). The structure of violent behaviour: A hierarchical model. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 33(6), 706-737. Mitchell, K.J., Finkelhor, D., Wolak, J., Ybarra, M.L.M.P.H, & Turner, H. (2010). Youth internet victimization in a broader victimization context. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48, 128-134. Mokken, R.J. (1997). Nonparametric models for dichotomous responses. In W.J. van der Linden and R.K. Hambleton (Eds.), Handbook of Modern Item Response Theory (pp. 351-367). New York: Springer. Molenaar, I.W., & Sijtsma, K. (2000). MSP5 for Windows: A Program for Mokken Scale Analysis For Polytomous Items (Version 5.0). Groningen, The Netherlands: University of Groningen, ProGAMMA. Mooij, T. (2011a). A Mokken scale to assess secondary pupils’ experience of violence in terms of severity. (Submitted.) Mooij, T. (2011b). Differences in pupil characteristics and motives in being a victim, perpetrator and witness of violence in secondary education. Research Papers in Education, 26, 105-128. Mooij, T. (2011c). Secondary school teachers’ personal and school characteristics, experience of violence and perceived violence motives. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17(2), 227-253. Mooij, T., Smeets, E., & De Wit, W. (2011). Multi-level aspects of social cohesion of secondary schools and pupils’ feelings of safety. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 81(3), 369-390. doi:10.1348/000709910X526614 Nitschke, J., Osterheider, M., & Mokros, A. (2009). A cumulative scale of severe sexual sadism. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 21(3), 262-278. Nylund, K., Bellmore, A., Nishina, A., & Graham, S. (2007). Subtypes, severity, and structural stability of peer victimization: What does latent class analysis say? Child Development, 78(6), 1706-1722.

Author Information

Ton Mooij (presenting / submitting)

Radboud University Nijmegen, ITS; Open University of the Netherlands, CELSTEC

ITS

Nijmegen

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