Why do some students want to be actively involved as peer educators, while others do not? Findings from NoTrap! anti-bullying and anti-cyberbullying program

Abstract

The present study aims to explore if students who voluntarily decide to become peer educators in an anti-bullying program differ from their classmates who don’t take on this role. 524 Italian students (age 13–18; males = 57%), completed self-report questionnaires at the pre-test measure of the NoTrap! anti-bullying program. In a following step, 118 of them voluntarily decided to become peer educators. Probit regression separate for gender, showed that male peer educators have a higher level of victimization, perceived support from friends and prosocial behaviour. On the other hand, female peer educators are characterized by a higher level of defending behaviours. These findings may guide further investigation about the role of peer educator in regards to bullying and cyberbullying prevention and intervention programs.

Keywords:

• Peer education
• bullying
• victimization
• peer support

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to all of the students, teachers, schools, and to the Province of Lucca for their collaboration in the study.

Notes

¹ Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) were conducted with Mplus 7.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2015) using missing data MLR estimator to obtain robust estimates given the non-normality of the items’ distribution. All of the models were evaluated by means of the following overall indices: the χ² statistic, the root-mean-squared error of approximation (RMSEA), and the comparative fit index (CFI). Recommended cut-off points for these measures are .05 for RMSEA (Browne & Cudeck, 1993) and .90 or .95 for CFI (Hu & Bentler, 1999).