Bullying as a predictor of socio-emotional development of secondary school students in the South-West region, Cameroon

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of bullying on the socio-emotional development of adolescent secondary school students in the South-West region, Cameroon. Specifically, the study looked at the extent physical bullying; verbal bullying and psychological bullying affect the socio-emotional development of adolescent secondary school students in the Southwest region Cameroon.The convergent research method involving the utilization of quantitative and qualitative data was adopted for the study. The study population comprised adolescent secondary school students and teachers from 31 secondary schools in Fako, Meme, and Kupe-Maunenguba divisions A sample of 569 adolescent students and 97 teachers were recruited for the study using the purposive, stratified sampling, and simple random sampling techniques Questionnaire and interview guide were the instruments used. The content, construct and face validity of the instruments were ascertained as test items were designed with reference to the literature review. The reliability of the questionnaire was computed using the Cronbach Alpha test which stood at 0.742 for bullying and 0.826 for socio-emotional development. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools and the qualitative data from teachers were analysed thematically. Findings revealed that the prevalence of physical bullying stood at 57.1%, verbal bullying 70.8%, and psychological bullying 75.8%. And statistically, findings showed that physical bullying (R- value = -0.313^**, p-value 0.000< 0.05), verbal bullying (R- value = -0.286^**, p-value 0.000< 0.05), and psychological bullying (R- value = -0.383^**, p-value 0.000< 0.05) were all found to have a significant and negative implications on adolescent students’ socio-emotional development. In addition, teachers reported that bullying makes victims scared, affect academic performance, causes low self-esteem, makes them withdrawn from school, affect concentration level, makes them feel traumatized, shy, isolated, suffer from emotional instability, makes them feel stress, and the school environment tense. It was generally recommended that school discipline be reinforced to mitigate the high rate of bullying among students.