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The prevalence of psychotic experiences in adolescence and associations with bullying, stress, dissociation and mood
2003
Cumbley, L.
Lancaster University

Psychotic disorders are experienced by between 100,0000 and 500,000 people in the U.K. at any one time.  The symptoms which characterise these disorders are more common in the general population than previously assumed.  Studies of both adults and children have demonstrated that up to 70% of non-clinical samples endorse items related to psychotic experiences.  Pre-psychosis or psychosis prodrome has been considered influential in the early identification and intervention in psychosis.  However the experiences that have been identified as indicators of psychosis are non-specific such as quality and withdrawal and could also be indicative of other psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression.  Models of psychosis previously focused upon deficits in those with psychosis.  Current cognitive models focus more upon thinking biases such as attributional bias or jumping to conclusions.  These models move away from the idea that psychosis is experienced by people who are physiologically or biologically different from those who do not.  These models are the foundation of current psychological intervention in psychosis and aim to reduce associated stigma and shame.  The present study aimed to assess the prevalence of psychotic experiences in a non-clinical sample of school-aged children.  Associations with depression, anxiety, stress, bullying and dissociation were also investigated.  Nine questionnaires were completed by 308 14 to 16 years olds.  results indicated that 98% of the sample endorsed at least one item on the early signs of psychosis measure and 92% endorsed at least one item on both the measures of delusional ideation and hallucinatory experiences.  Psychotic experiences were significantly associated with all other factors and those who had been bullied were significantly more likely to report psychotic experiences.  This study adds further support to the continuum model of psychosis and clinical practice implications are discussed.

Critical success factors in early secondary education
2005
Wilson, D.
Trinity College Dublin

The school chosen for the purposes of the study was an all boys independent school, located in south Dublin. The annual intake of year one students was just under 100 and each year group were looked after by a ‘Year Head’. These year heads provided much of the daily information relating to behaviour, attendance and punctuality and also acted as a reference point for weekly briefings regarding the progress of the group. Class teachers, form teachers and extra-curricular staff also provided information which was added to the continuous stream of formal input and which was valuable in terms of providing a complete account of each student’s experiences. On their entry into year one of secondary school, the study group (91 students aged 12-13) began a series of tests, surveys and assessments that would continue for the three years of their junior cycle experience. Ten variable categories were studied and numerous data collection techniques were employed: –  Ability and intelligence tests were administered to all students; –  Daily reports were compiled in the areas of behaviour, attendance and punctuality; –  Six-weekly continuous assessment reports were presented by individual teachers; –  Twice years surveys on esteem, attribution and socialisation were organised; –  Annual assessments of involvement in extra-curricular activities and involvement in bullying were completed; and –  The normal school records (eg: academic results at Christmas and summer of each year) were also made available for the purposes of the study. Each of these tests, surveys and assessments was administered directly by the researcher, who was working as a teacher in the school for the duration of the project. The information gathered was added to a selection of computerised data files at the end of every day and a summary of the results in each category was produced at the middle and end of each academic year. These results were collated over a three year period and were cross-referenced and correlated in an attempt to identify trends and patterns in the data.

Recommending Toxicity: How TikTok and YouTube Shorts are bombarding boys and men with misogynist content

A new study from Dublin City University’s Anti-Bullying Centre shows that the recommender algorithms used by social media platforms are rapidly amplifying misogynistic and male supremacist content.

The study, conducted by Professor Debbie Ging, Dr Catherine Baker and Dr Maja Andreasen, tracked, recorded and coded the content recommended to 10 experimental or ‘sockpuppet’ accounts on 10 blank smartphones – five on YouTube Shorts and five on TikTok. The researchers found that all of the male-identified accounts were fed masculinist, anti-feminist and other extremist content, irrespective of whether they sought out general or male supremacist-related content, and that they all received this content within the first 23 minutes of the experiment.

Once the account showed interest by watching this sort of content, the amount rapidly increased. By the last round of the experiment (after 400 videos or two to three hours viewing), the vast majority of the content being recommended to the phones was toxic (TikTok 76% and YouTube Shorts 78%), primarily falling into the manosphere (alpha male and anti-feminist) category. Much of this content rails against equality and promotes the submission of women. There was also a large amount of content devoted to male motivation, money-making and mental health. This material strategically taps into boys’ financial and emotional insecurities and is particularly dangerous in relation to mental health as it frequently claims that depression is a sign of weakness and that therapy is ineffective. The other toxic categories were reactionary right and conspiracy, which accounted for 13.6% of recommended content on TikTok and 5.2% of recommended content on YouTube Shorts. Much of this was anti-transgender content.

Overall, YouTube Shorts accounts were recommended a larger amount of toxic content (on average 61.5% of the total recommended content) than TikTok accounts (34.7%). Content featuring ‘Manfluencers’ (male influencers) accounted for the vast majority of recommended videos in the dataset, demonstrating their centrality in the current manosphere ecosystem. By far the most prevalent of these was Andrew Tate, who featured 582 times on the YouTube Shorts accounts and 93 times on the TikTok accounts.

According to Prof. Ging, “Our study shows that shutting down influencers’ accounts does not necessarily remove their content. The overwhelming presence of Andrew Tate content in our dataset at a time when he was de-platformed means that social media companies must tackle harmful content in more sophisticated ways.”

The findings of the report point to urgent and concerning issues for parents, teachers, policy makers, and society as a whole. Among the authors’ recommendations are better content moderation, turning off recommender algorithms by default and cooperation with trusted flaggers to highlight illegal, harmful, and borderline content. They also stress the need for teacher education and the teaching of critical digital literacy skills in schools to equip young people with a better understanding of how influencer culture and algorithms work.

According to Prof. Ging, “Ultimately, girls and women are the most severely impacted by these beliefs, but they are also damaging to the boys and men who consume them, especially in relation to mental wellbeing. The social media companies must come under increased pressure from the government to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of young people over profit.”

The full-length report is available at: https://antibullyingcentre.ie/recommending-toxicity/

Collaborative practice: a resolution model for Irish employment disputes?
2012
McMorrow, Rory
Letterkenny Institute of Technology

Ireland has a comprehensive yet complex, statutory framework for the resolution of employment disputes. Various bodies offer conciliation, mediation, arbitration and regulation, however the processes are taking too long. The focus of this dissertation is on another form of dispute resolution – collaborative law and its suitability to the resolution of Irish employment disputes. The overarching question of this research is: Can a dispute resolution model based on collaborative practice be a useful addition to alternative dispute resolution in Irish employment law? A review of ADR and employment literature provides a context for this research. The first phase of the primary research consisted of a survey of collaborative practitioners in Ireland to identify the current usage and success of collaborative law and whether practitioners felt collaborative law was suitable for the resolution of Irish employment disputes. The second phase entailed depth interviews with key employment stakeholders to verify the findings from phase A. Analysis of the findings indicate that collaborative law could be a successful method of dispute resolution and that practitioners feel it is an appropriate method of dispute resolution for employment disputes.

The bullying of autistic children: A review of anti-bullying interventions, and a feasibility study examining the relationship between bullying victimisation and psychosis-like experiences
2020
Hastings, Kimberly N.
University of Sheffield

Bullying of autistic children by their peers is prevalent. This is a significant concern, given research linking childhood bullying with adverse mental health outcomes, in both autistic and neurotypical groups.

The first section of this thesis is a scoping review, which aimed to establish what interventions have been developed to reduce the bullying of autistic children. The second section reports an investigation of the feasibility of examining the relationship between bullying victimisation and psychosis-like experiences (PLEs) in autistic children. Following a systematic literature search 10 studies were identified for inclusion in the scoping review. Broadly, interventions focussed either upon skills-development for autistic children, or the promotion of contact between autistic children and neurotypical peers. There was heterogeneity in the research designs used and outcome measures employed.

Overall, the evidence base is in its infancy and there is a need to develop and evaluate multicomponent interventions involving autistic children, neurotypical peers, staff and schools. A quantitative cross-sectional design was used to investigate the feasibility of testing the relationship between bullying victimisation and PLEs in autistic children, and to test the preliminary hypothesis of association between these variables. Parents completed a battery of online questionnaires about their children (N=53). Hierarchical multiple regression was used to test the relationship between the variables of interest, while controlling for: age, sex, family history of psychosis and internalising difficulties.

It was found that there is a lack of suitable questionnaires for measuring PLEs in autistic children, and that recruiting a large sample via a clinical service may not be feasible. Preliminary hypothesis testing failed to establish a statistically significant relationship between bullying victimisation and PLEs in autistic children. However, this should not preclude future work in this area.

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Get up! Stand up! (version 2): An evaluation of a school-based social skills programme
2019
O’Meara, Billy
Mary Immaculate College

Background: Social and emotional (SE) skills play an important role in a person’s development, while a range of negative outcomes are associated with poor SE skills (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2013; 2015; Gresham & Elliott, 2008). The targeting of these skills in school-based programmes can produce positive outcomes (Durlak, Dymnicki, Taylor, Weissberg, & Schellinger, 2011). Get Up! Stand Up! (Version 2) (GUSU2) (National Educational Psychological Service, 2017) is a SE skills programme currently in use in Irish schools. However, to date, no substantial evaluation of GUSU2 has been conducted. CASEL outline a framework for such school-based programmes which identifies several essential elements, including being well-designed, addressing five SE competencies, offering support and training to facilitators and being offered over multiple years. Programmes which meet these standards are noted to be associated with a range of positive outcomes for participants.

Aim: This study aims to evaluate GUSU2 as a SE skills programme in the context of the CASEL framework. This study will consider the impact of GUSU2 on participants’ SE skills, whilst also considering the perspectives of the relevant stakeholders on GUSU2 and the training and support provided.

Methodology: A mixed-method, partially mixed sequential equal status design was used to evaluate GUSU2. Documentary analysis was conducted on the GUSU2 manual. Thematic analysis, using a combination of deductive and inductive analysis (Braun, Clarke, Hayfield, & Terry, 2018; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010) was conducted on data from four pupil focus groups involving 27 pupils and from seven semi-structured teacher interviews. Data collected by the school psychology service, using the Social Skills Improvement System-Rating Scales (SSIS-RS) (Gresham & Elliott, 2008), was analysed using a mixed between-within subjects’ analysis of variance and post-hoc t-tests to determine the impact of participating in GUSU2 compared to participants in a business-as-usual control group. Data included pre- and post-intervention measures of SE skills from 225 pupils in 14 schools, including three control schools consisting of 68 pupils. In addition to the full study sample, a lower ability sample (n = 37) were identified based on their pre-intervention scores and analysed accordingly.

Findings: There was a statistically significant increase in participants’ total standard scores in both the GUSU2 and business-as-usual groups in both the full study and lower ability samples. There was no significant interaction effect identified, suggesting that GUSU2 is as effective as the business-as-usual approach. However, qualitative analysis suggests that pupils engaged with the programme and demonstrated learning in several competencies. Analysis of the qualitative data indicates that several aspects of GUSU2 require further development to align with the CASEL framework. Several potential barriers to implementation and learning were identified, including a lack of ongoing external support, brief training, concerns over resources, pupil over-familiarity, and small school size.

Conclusions: Several implications from this evaluation are discussed, including areas for development within GUSU2 in relation to the CASEL framework, issues regarding programme fidelity and the collection of appropriate data. Suggestions for further research and policy are also made.

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An analysis of changing government policy towards the Further Education sector: 1992-2003
2003
Hammond, M.J.
University of Lincoln

This thesis investigates three issues in relation to governments’ policies towards the Further Education (FE) sector between 1992 and 2003.  This investigation entails using lengthy, semi-structured interviews with four senior post- holders within the FE sector (all of whom were influential during the period of the changes) and a comparison of their views with those from government policy documents, policy statements and secondary literature.  This data explores first, the ideologies behind the incorporation of the FE college sector, as FE colleges were taken out of Local Authority control and incorporated into their own independent organisations.  This ideology is found to be centred on the concept of new managerisalism, which postulates that managers should be allowed to manage.  This means that any democratic accountability structures and other controls that are perceived to inhibit management freedom in the public sector have to be removed.  Secondly, this thesis analyses the ideologies of incorporation, and reviews the motivators that persuaded the newly elected Labour Government in 1997 that there needed to be a change from the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) model of FE to that of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) model.  The dominant motivators cited by the respondents for this phenomena were the problems in some FE colleges of bullying and mismanagement, sleaze, uncontrolled expansion of franchised provision and a failure of the governors in many FE colleges to make their senior management accountable.  Thirdly, the thesis seeks views on the likely effects of the LSC on the FE sector and the possible effectiveness of the different ideologies of the LSC, compared with those of the FEFC.  Respondents felt that the LSC planning model proposed, might not work in practice in the way that the LSC intended, as they felt it was extremely difficult to obtain accurate data on skill needs from which FE colleges could work.  The thesis also shows that the senior post holders’ views strongly reinforced the expectations of the secondary literature and government policies.  There is also a concurrence among the interviewees, that the structural changes made by Government in the FE college sector since 1992, have brought (and may bring) some negative consequences for FE colleges.

An investigation into the problem of cyberstalking in Ireland and an examination of the usefulness of classifying cyberstalking as an addictive disorder.
2010
Breslin, Paul
Dublin Business School

Cyberstalking is a new phenomenon that is facing our society. It is a poorly researched and widely misunderstood concept that is only now coming to the attention of researchers. There are numerous features of the internet that make it an attractive tool for harassment such as low cost, deliberately low regulation, ease of use, immediacy, potentially anonymous nature, law restrictions, widespread availability, stealth, insignificance of physical distance and victim depersonalisation. In this way a space has been opened up that allows individuals a forum to harass, intimidate and threaten others. The purpose of the research is to investigate the prevalence of cyberstalking in an Irish sample and to explore the possibility that cyberstalking should be viewed as an addictive disorder. A literature review of the small but growing body of research relating to cyberstalking was undertaken. In order to address the research question a survey questionnaire was devised so that the results assess aspects of cyberstalking behaviour that may be indicative of an addictive disorder. Email and social networking sites were the cyberstalking tools of interest in the study. 100 participants were recruited online through Email and Facebook to take part in the study. Participation consisted of completing the online questionnaire. The results were compared to the criteria for addictive disorders suggested by Goodman. The findings suggest that cyberstalking is indeed a pervasive problem in contemporary Irish society and some evidence supports the contention that it should be considered an addictive disorder. Furthermore, the results support a number of trends present in the cyberstalking literature. The conclusions drawn indicate that the phenomenon of cyberstalking deserves examination and that further and more extensive research is needed in the area to adequately address the issue.