The Motivation And Effects On Teachers’ Intervention Behaviors In School Bullying Incidents

Background: School bullying is a widespread problem in primary and secondary schools around the world.With the increasing stability of the theoretical research on bullying,researchers gradually turn to the practical research on bullying prevention and intervention.Teachers,as the authoritative administrators of students,bear the responsibility of maintaining campus safety and correcting students’ bad behaviors.Their responses to bullying may directly or indirectly shape students’ perceptions,moral and behavioral standards of bullying,and thus have an impact on students’ physical and mental health.Understanding the characteristics of teachers’ response to bullying and its influence on students can further provide practical basis for improving teachers’ understanding and ability to intervene in bullying.Objective: The purposes of this research were to explore the types and characteristics of teachers’ intervention behaviors,and how external environment and teachers’ perceptions of bullying incidents affect their decisions to intervene in bullying incidents.Besides,to explore the influence of teachers’ responses to bullying incidents on students.Methods: In study 1 and Study 2,362 primary and secondary school teachers were used as subjects.Demographic variables questionnaire,subjective norms questionnaire,teachers’ intervention behavior in bullying incidents questionnaire,bullying intervention intention scale and teachers’ perceived severity of bullying incidents were used to investigate the collected data.SPSS26.0 was used to input the data Amos23.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis,and Model 58 in PROCESS v3.4.0 program was used to test and regulate the mediating effect.Third,questionnaire method was adopted,44 class teachers and 1286 students were taken as subjects,and HLM6.08 was used for multilayer linear model test,and frequency statistics were adopted Descriptive statistical difference test and correlation analysis to present the results.Results:1.Authoritative mediation was the most frequently used intervention by teachers in bullying incidents.Seeking support was the most common combination of intervention behaviors adopted by teachers,and the intervention behaviors of teachers are positively correlated with the anti-bullying training they received.2.Subjective norm was positively correlated with teachers’ intervention behaviors.Teachers’ intention to intervene in bullying events plays a mediating role in the relationship between subjective norms and intervention behaviors.The perceived severity of bullying events has a significant moderating effect on the mediation model: when the perceived severity was low,subjective norms indirectly predict teachers’ intervention behavior through intervention intention.However,when perceived severity was high,the mediating effect was not significant,and teachers’ high intervention intention directly predicts their intervention behavior positively.3.Teachers’ authoritative mediation of bullying can alleviate the internalization of bullied students,but authoritative punishment can alleviate the internalization of bullied students only when they were frequently bullied,and dealing with relatively mild bullying can increase the internalization of students Teachers’ cooperative intervention significantly enhanced the positive predictive effect of bullying on students’ internalization problems,while seeking support had no significant predictive and moderating effect on students’ internalization problems.Conclusion: This study revealed the characteristics of teachers’ intervention behaviors in real bullying incidents,and how their behaviors were influenced indirectly through intention to intervene by subjective norm.Teachers’ perceived severity of bullying incidents played a moderating role in the mediation model.In addition,this study further explored how teachers’ intervention behaviors influenced internalizing and externalizing problems of students across levels.The results showed that Authoritative mediation was the most frequently used intervention behaviors,and Authoritative mediation& Seeking support & Authoritative punishment was the most frequently used combination strategy.Higher subjective norms were more conducive to promoting teachers’ intervention in less serious bullying incidents in real situations,and teachers’ Authoritative mediation of bullying incidents can effectively alleviate the internalizing and externalizing problems of victims.It was suggested that the future anti-bullying work should focus on improving the anti-bullying norm and teachers’ scientific cognition of bullying through regular teacher training.Teachers should realize the influence of different intervention behaviors on students’ mental health,and participate in the intervention of bullying incidents actively.