An Exploratory Factor Analysis and Reliability Analysis of the Perceived Severity and Response to Bullies and Victims of Bullying Questionnaire.

This study aimed to test the reliability of the Perceived Severity and Response to Bullies and Victims of Bullying Questionnaire (PSRBVBQ) for middle school teachers (N=322 teachers), using exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis. PSRBVBQ assesses teachers' responses to bullying using situational scenarios. It includes two vignettes for each type of bullying (physical, verbal and relational) to analyze the perceived severity, likelihood of responding to the bully, likelihood of responding to the victim. Exploratory factor analysis indicated a three-factor solution: perceived severity (a =.73), the likelihood of responding to the bully (a = .84), the likelihood of responding to the victim (a = .89). These results indicate a good internal consistency of the items in each scale, especially for the likelihood of responding to the victim and for the likelihood of responding to the bully scales. The results show that the PSRBVBQ has good psychometric properties and can be successfully used in research regarding Romanian teachers' perceptions and their response to bullying. Also, more than one-third of teachers perceive verbal aggression as serious, while much less perceive relational aggression as very serious. At the same time, we found that the perceived severity predicts the probability of the teacher's reaction to the incidents of aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]