Hierarchical factor structure of the Bullying Participant Behavior Questionnaire with a middle school sample

ABSTRACT

The Bullying Participant Behavior Questionnaire is a 50 item self-report survey designed to measure engagement in five bullying roles: bully, victim, assistant to the bully, defender of the victim, and outsider. The goal of the current study was to examine the higher-order factor structure of the BPBQ in a large middle school sample of 784 primarily White sixth- through eighth-grade students from the Midwest region of the United States. Analyses suggested that the Victim, Defender, and Outsider items loaded on their theoretically consistent factors and the Bully and Assistant items all loaded on a single factor (Bully/Assistant). Some factor correlations were moderate and suggested the presence of higher-order factor(s). A second-order EFA showed there appear to be two higher-order factors. Factor 1 is a combination of the Bully/Assistant and Outsider dimensions while Factor 2 is a combination of Defender and Victim dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the best fitting model consisted of the two general factors. There was a Pro-bully factor consisting of the Bully, Assistant, and Outsider group factors and a Pro-victim factor consisting of the Victim and Defender factors. There is support for the use of the BPBQ, but additional refinement of the items is needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Bullying
• peer victimization
• exploratory factor analysis
• confirmatory factor analysis
• middle school

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lyndsay N. Jenkins

Dr. Lyndsay N. Jenkins is an Assistant Professor at Florida State University in the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. Her research interests focus on bullying and victimization, defending behaviors in youth and adolescents, as well as social and emotional barriers to academic achievement.

Gary L. Canivez

Dr. Gary L. Canivez is a professor at Eastern Illinois University in the Department of Psychology. His research interests involve psychometric evaluation of intelligence, achievement, personality, and psychopathology tests and bias assessment in testing.