The Effects of Bullying on Academic Achievement

THE EFFECT OF BULLYING ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF LEARNERS IN HIGH SCHOOLTHE BACKGROUND TO THE STUDYBullying has become a challenge that numerous grooms ar battling with. Olweus (1995), noted that intimidate happens at enlightens during times when a somebody is loose everywhere and over again to ostracise behaviour which throw out be all verbal or physical to one or more learners. Olweus also noted that a roughneck relationship requires an inequality of potence or power over the other person. Dillon and Lash (2005) made a similar explanation about bullying, display that bullying involves repeated high- pull behaviour universe done by learners who set out seem to cast an advantage in terms strength over their victims.Providing a slender definition as to what bullying is can be a consequence difficult beca physical exercise bullying has evolved and continues to evolve with the societal changes taking place in the society that we now live in. With the new developme nts in engineering, it creates more platforms for bullying to also develop and change. Cyberbullying is bullying that uses technology such as emails or social media platforms to taint and ruin the reputation of a person (Wong, 2009).enquiry has shown that bullying does have a bad effect on the victim physically and socially. Learners fear being bullied so much so that they would quite a stay at home (Vail, 1999). Therefore, if bullying causes learners to become absent thus the effect it has on pedantic surgery can be assessed through with(predicate) learners grades, tardiness and absenteeism. A study performed by (Glew, Fan, Katon, Rivara and Kenric, 2005) pointed out that victims and bullies were prone to having poor pedantic attainment than by-standers. There ar also emotional personal effects that are caused by bullying, it causes so much stress for the victim that it ends up showing through physical symptoms, which then leads to the increase in absenteeism of the learne r.Those physical effects of bullying experienced by learners or the victim of bullying on with other psychological issues caused by bullying leads to the poor academician performance. canter (2005) confirms bullying is a present-day phenomenon in most schools in the unify States and is said to affect over 70% of learners (as cited in Beaty & Alexyev, 2008). Several researchers, Borg (1999), Boulton & underbrush (1992) and Olweus (1993), assert learners that are victims of bullying have lasting emotional, academic, and behavioural problems (as cited in Whitted & Dupper, 2005, p.167).A recent study has shown that when learners are teased and bullied frequently the learners stick out interest in school, and this then affects learners commitment and also their involvement in school activities (Mehta, Cornell, Fan, & Gregory, 2013).It has been reported by principals and teachers that when the school environment is seen as a negative place to be by the learners, it leads to poor sch ool motion (Cornell, Gregory, Huang, & Fan, 2013 Johnson & Stevens, 2006 Kon- ishi, Hymel, Zumbo, & Li, 2010 MacNeil, Prater, & Busch, 2009 Ripski & Gregory, 2009).Bradshaw et al. (2007) found that over 49% of learners said that they have been bullied, while over 70% of learners witnessed bullying. While boys bully their victims physically, girls bully their victims through gossip, spreading rumours, or excluding them from social groups (Peckham, 2007).The Statement of the Research ProblemBullying is a problem that affects all learners either as the person being bullied, the victim, or by-stander. Bullying can convey many forms from verbal to physical assaults, threats, jokes or language, being mocked and criticized, to being insulted or presumption funny facial expressions. These factors work either individually or together in leading to a learners being bullied. Bullying has some(prenominal) impacts in the school and one those is the impact it has on academic achievement.For m any years now narrate has shown that bullying does have a negative influence on a learners well-being. With so many learners experiencing the effects of being bullied, many schools in the province have decided to act on the problem.The effects of bullying within the school environment and persistent pressure from legislators and the community as a whole for an increase in the academic performance of learners, is a concern for school administrators, teachers and the parents. This research aims to investigate the plug into between bullying and the academic performance of learners.Research questions/HypothesesHow does bullying affect the academic performance of learners?Does bullying have an effect on the academic performance of learners?What are the forms of bullying that take place at the school?What are the effects of bullying on the victims, the bullies, by-standers and the school environment?What are the characteristics of a bully?Purpose of the StudyThe aim of this study is to investigate the effect that bullying has on the academic performance of learners achievement in schools. The more we are informed about bullying in schools the better equipped the school and district exit be and also the school leaders forget be able to minimize the bullying from taking place and train about changes that are positive to the schools, district and also the community.There is evidence that bullying is a serious problem for schools and this has been found in original literature and the local setting. The goal of this study is to provide better taking into custody of the effects of bullying on the academic performance of learners in the school district.The Significance of the StudyBullying is a problem that affects many learners lives. Problems linked with bullying have grown over time due to the increased access to technology and social media allowing more opportunities of cyberbullying (Patechin Hinduja,2006).Bullying is complicated and is linked to cultural, soc ial, family and personal aspects of our lives (Pepler et al.,2006).This study attempts to burst the nature of the relationship between bullying and academic achievement with the use of multiple regression technique and examine whether academic performance levels can be predicted by the frequency of bullying in a given school district.This study is aimed to at helping the district and the schools to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the frequency of bullying in a school and learners academic performance.Definition of Key TermsAcademic performance The extent to which a scholarly person , teacher or an institution has achieved their short or long-term educational goals.Bully A person who intentionally causes harm to another person whetBullying reiterate aggressive verbal or physical behaviour with the intention of harming or hurting another person. This happens frequently and involves an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim.By-stander A person wh o sees the act of bullying taking place.Learner A person who is learning a skill or subjectVictim A learner who is rag by another learner or a group of learners two, cardinal or more learners leading to suffering physical or psychological harm.Delimitation of the StudyThe study only includes incidents that were reported in the school district and will be based only on high schools in Bloemfontein. mesh in this study will be delimited to Grade 10 learners and their teachers. The amount of unreported bullying is beyond the scope of this study. Bullying talent affect other variables but for this study only academic achievement will be measured.