General information about the revised olweus

Dan Olweus December, 2001
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE REVISED OLWEUS
BULLY/VICTIM QUESTIONNAIRE, PC PROGRAM AND TEACHER
HANDBOOK
THE QUESTIONNAIRE
The Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (for the present available in English,
Norwegian, and Swedish), which is filled out anonymously by the students, consists of some 40
questions for the measurement of a number of aspects ofbully/victim problems: to be exposed to
various (physical, verbal, indirect, racial, sexual etc.) forms of bullying/harassment, various
forms of bullying other students, where the bullying occurs, pro-bully and pro-victim attitudes,
and the extent to which the social environment (teachers, peers, parents) are informed about and
react to the bullying etc. The psychometric properties of theQuestionnaire are generally quite
good. The “definition” of the word bullying as presented to the students in the Questionnaire is
included here as an Appendix.
There are two, only slightly different versions of the Questionnaire, one (denoted E01-
JUNIOR on the front page) for use in grades 3 through 5 (for students with 2 years,
possibly one year, of reading instruction), and one (denoted E01-SENIOR)for grades 6
through 10 or higher. The way of administering the Questionnaire is slightly different for
students in lower and higher grades, as explained in the instructions for administration. In the
higher grades, administration of the survey can usually be completed within less than a school
hour. Students in the lower grades and/or students with reading difficulties may need somewhatlonger time.
We generally recommend that the Questionnaire be administered to the students no
earlier than 6-8 weeks after the Summer or Winter holidays. The Questionnaire 'package'
also contains an Instruction part, one copy of the Questionnaire with recommended code
numbers (Code Form for the Senior and Junior versions), and a General Information part
which gives advice about how to code andprocess the students' responses.
THE PC PROGRAM
It is also possible to order a computer program (compatible with a Windows95 or
Windows98 PC ) which will greatly facilitate (the manual) entering and processing of the
students' responses. The computer program output will produce a profile of key results for each
school or other unit (such as a school district), in part divided according to sexand grade level.
These results give a good picture of various aspects of bully/victim problems at the particular
school /other relevant unit and are of considerable help in planning intervention efforts.
The program can be ordered through the Order Form attached at the end of these
information sheets. The costs for use of the program are listed below.
2
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THEQUESTIONNAIRE AND MY CORE
PROGRAM AGAINST BULLYING AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR (BULLYING
PREVENTION PROGRAM)
Many of the questions in the Questionnaire have been used in my own large-scale
surveys of Norwegian and Swedish students, and accordingly, there is a good deal of data with
which survey results from one's own school(s) can be compared. Additional data from student
populations in other countrieswill gradually become available. Generally, I refer to my small
book Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
1993; the book can be ordered directly from: Marketing Department, Blackwells, 108 Cowley
Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, United Kingdom, or from Blackwells, c/o AIDC, P.O.Box 20,
Williston, VT 05495, USA, phone: 1-800-216-2522) which contains a gooddeal of information
of relevance. The book also gives a relatively detailed description of the school based antibullying
intervention program that I developed and scientifically evaluated in 42 schools in
Bergen, Norway (2500 students followed over 2,5 years). Some of the main results were as
follows:
* There were marked reductions - by 50% or more - in bully/victim problems in the
42 schools...