Effects of a Randomized Trial of the Youth Matters Prevention Program on Bully Victimization from Elementary to Middle School

Background & Purpose: School-wide interventions, classroom management approaches, and playground aggression reduction strategies have been used with varying success to prevent bullying and aggression among elementary and middle school students. One argument in the prevention literature suggests that social and emotional skills training interventions may be an effective way to reduce bullying behavior and victimization. A victim’s ability to respond calmly and assertively to direct and indirect forms of bullying is likely an important factor in moderating or reducing risk for subsequent bully victimization. Thus, it follows that strategies aimed at teaching social and emotional skills may help students regulate their emotions and develop appropriate responses to bullying prompts. This study examines the effects of a social and emotional learning program called Youth Matters (YM) in reducing bullying and victimization and on patterns of bullying and victimization during late childhood and early adolescence.

Method: Data are from a group-randomized trial of YM that was conducted in 28 public elementary and middle schools. Fourth-grade classrooms in participating schools were randomly assigned to receive YM or routine classroom content (N=876; 52% female; 53% Latino/a). Intervention occurred in the 4^th and 5^th grades, followed by a one-year follow-up after the first year of middle school. Cross-classified linear growth models were fitted to five waves of data collected over three years to test the effect of the YM intervention on the rate of change in self-reported bullying behaviors and victimization. Latent class analyses (LCA) were used to assess changes in patterns of bullying and victimization during the last two years of elementary school and the first year of middle school.

Results: Multi-level growth curve analyses revealed that bully victimization declined over the course of the study and that the rate of decline in victimization was significantly higher in experimental schools relative to control schools. Over the course of the study, participation in YM was associated with a 20% decline in the mean bully victim score in the average YM school compared to only 7% in the average control group school. LCA findings revealed that subjects in the YM group transitioned from membership in bully, victim, and bully-victim classes to the uninvolved class at significantly higher rates than their control counterparts; these effects were strongest during the first year of intervention and in the transition year to middle school. The most positive impact of YM was evident among students in the victim class; YM subjects in this class transitioned to the uninvolved class at significantly higher rates than control subjects at each time interval.

Conclusions & Implications: Findings from the YM trial point to the importance of research aimed at ameliorating bullying and victimization in public school systems. Our results suggest that increasing skills in recognizing and resisting bullying behaviors reduces victimization among fourth and fifth grade students. Follow-up findings also suggest that implementing prevention programs in the latter years of elementary school may be a promising approach to altering patterns of bullying and victimization during the transition from elementary to middle school.