Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration, and Bystander Experiences: A Compendium of Assessment Tools

Bullying, particularly among school-age children, is a major public health problem both domestically and internationally. Current estimates suggest that nearly 30% of American adolescents reported at least moderate bullying experiences as the bully, the victim, or both. Specifically, of a nationally representative sample of adolescents, 13% reported being a bully, 11% reported being a victim of bullying, and 6% reported being both a bully and a victim.

This compendium provides researchers, prevention specialists, and health educators with tools to measure a range of bullying experiences: bully perpetration, bully victimization, bully-victim experiences, and bystander experiences. Some researchers continue to examine the risk and protective factors associated with bullying experiences. Others are working to design, implement, and evaluate bully prevention interventions aimed at reducing bully victimization and perpetration, as well as increasing prosocial bystander involvement in bullying situations. The ability to measure bullying experiences broadly and completely is crucial to the success of these activities.

This compendium contains 33 measures, which were selected using specific procedures. Bullying search terms were drawn from a review of the most salient literature on bullying victimization and perpetration as well as bystander experiences among adolescents and young adults. These terms were used to conduct searches of multiple electronic databases, which yielded a variety of different measures and scales.