Testing measurement invariance and multilevel factor structures of bullying among Iranian adolescents

ABSTRACT

School bullying is a significant public health problem and a widespread type of school violence. Empirically validated evaluation scales are needed for use in research and practice to explain the nature and scope of adolescent bullying. The current study investigated the multilevel factor structure and measurement invariance of the Olweus bullying, victimization, and perpetration scales across gender and school types on a random sample of 1,558 Iranian adolescences. Although results indicated adequate goodness of fit for the one-factor and four-factor structures in both scales, it seems like the four-factor structure is more appropriate for use in within-level (students) and the one-factor for between-level (school). In addition, measurement invariance analyses showed that configural, metric, and scalar invariance were established across gender and school types. These findings provide psychometrical support for the use of the Olweus bullying, victimization, and perpetration scales in Iranian adolescents.

KEYWORDS:

• Bullying victimization scale
• bullying perpetration scale
• Iran
• measurement invariance
• multilevel confirmatory factor analysis
• school

Acknowledgments

Researchers thank all of the schools, staff, and students who participated and the Security Office of the Education Department at Mazandaran Province. Authors also thank Dr. Amanda J. Nguyen, from the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, for reading and commenting on the draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Kerman University of Medical Sciences [Grant No: 95000607];

Notes on contributors

Maysam Rezapour

Maysam Rezapour is a PhD candidate in Epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran. His current research interests include adolescent violence, school health, and social epidemiology.

Narges Khanjani

Narges Khanjani is an Environmental Epidemiologist currently working at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences (KMU), Kerman, Iran. She is also a member of the Iranian Epidemiology Association (http://www.irea.ir/) and a member of the Iranian Association for Environmental Health (www.iaeh.org). She is an adjunct research fellow at the Monash Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is also a member of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE), http://www.iseepi.org/ and the International Epidemiological Association (IEA), http://www.ieaweb.org/.

Moghadameh Mirzai

Moghadameh Mirzai, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Her current research interest is Multilevel Analyses.