Investigating the comparability of a self-report measure of childhood bullying across countries

Responding to international concerns regarding childhood bullying and a need to identify a common bullying measure, this study examines the comparability of children's self-reports of bullying across five countries. The Pacific-Rim Bullying Measure, a self-report measure of students' experiences with six different types of bullying behaviour and victimization, was administered to 1,398 Grade 5 students from Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, and United States. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory modeling were used to evaluate construct equivalence on the measure across different countries. Preliminary results revealed some construct differences across countries, that is, the bullying measure is measuring one construct, but that the construct is manifested differently in the different countries.