Validating the Cisneros self-test on bullying in Dominican students

Abstract

Bullying is a relevant concept in education, composed by different dimensions and it is significantly associated to other variables. Therefore, there is a need for an instrument which can analyze the level of bullying as a single dimension, as the Cisneros Self-test on Bullying (Oñate & Piñuel, 2005). This instrument analyzes the intensity of bullying and to value its relevance on the different variables mentioned above. Our main goal was to validate this instrument in 531 Dominican secondary students. To validate it, we utilized two instruments: the Emotional Instability Scale (Caprara & Pastorelli, 1993) and the Prosocial Conduct Questionnaire (Caprara & Pastorelli, 1993). Several competitive structural models were estimated, and results supported thereliability and validity of this instrument. Therefore, we can conclude that the Cisneros’s scale is a good instrument to measure global bullying. We highlight its influence on future interventions considering the relevance that bullying has on many other variables as aggressiveness, prosocial behavior or suicide ideation.