Whole-school anti-bullying programs are widely recognised as the best, evidence-based approaches to reducing school bullying. Despite this, few published studies have been conducted within high schools to systematically evaluate anti-bullying interventions using a control group design. To this end, a quasi-experimental study of anti-bullying interventions was conducted in four international secondary schools in Hong Kong. The four secondary schools were randomly assigned to: (a) a whole school curriculum intervention, (b) a combined Year 7 curriculum and shared concern intervention, (c) a shared concern only intervention and (d) a control school. The sample consisted of 549, year 7 students who anonymously completed a pre-test / post-test questionnaire. Results were analysed using several ANOVA procedures. When post-test composite bullying scores were adjusted for pre-test school differences, a highly significant main effect for schools was found (F = 7.70 p < .001). In further comparisons, a repeated-measures ANOVA showed the most significant reduction in bullying composite scores occurred when a whole school intervention was used (F = 10.73 p < .001). Bullying levels increased from pre-test to post-test over the school year for both the control school and the school that adopted a shared concern only approach. These results provide strong support for the need for high schools to adopt a whole-school preventative and management approach if they are to be effective in reducing student bullying.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

According to the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE), equally able students have lower academic self-concepts when attending academically selective schools than non-selective schools. Here we evaluated the generalizability of the BFLPE with diverse self-constructs (e.g., self-concepts, values, goals, interest, etc.) for Grade 7 Hong Kong Chinese students (N= 1950). According to the internal/external frame of reference model, students formulate their self-concept by comparing their own performance (e.g., math achievement) with that of other students (i.e., the external frame) as well as their own performance in other academic areas (e.g., language; the internal frame). In support of the BFLPE, structural equation models showed that self-concept, self-efficacy and interest were most affected by school-average ability. Furthermore, students with high mastery goal, low performance goals, and low avoidance goals were less affected by the negative BFLPE. In agreement with the Eccles and Wigfield's (2002) expectancy-value model, expectancy and value had positive, additive effects on students' persistence/effort. However, there was no expectancy X value interaction as posited in earlier versions of the model. Implications for teaching are discussed.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]