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Bullying & Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents

A 26-item (2x13 items) self-report survey tool that measures bullying behaviour, validated for use with young people ages 12-17 years.
Technology No. T02616


Bullying & Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents (BCS-A)

The BCS-A is available in a range of language options.

You can select your desired option at the check-out page.

Description of the Bullying & Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents (BCS-A)

The BCS-A measures both victimisation (being bullied) and perpetration (bullying others) experiences. The survey also measures different forms of bullying behaviour – those which occur face-to-face as well as those that occur online.

The measurement approach has been empirically validated and supports the measurement of four broad forms of bullying behaviour – physical, verbal, relational and cyber (Figure 1). The BCS-A comprises 26 items in total, including two parallel 13 item scales, one each for victimisation and perpetration.

The BCS-A can be used to estimate the proportion (%) of youth involved in bullying at three levels – i) overall, ii) by type of involvement (victimisation/perpetration) and iii) by type of behaviour (physical/verbal/relational/cyber). The BCS-A can also be used to calculate mean scores on the victimisation and perpetration scales, as well as the four associated sub-scales.


Description of the difference between the two versions of the BCS-A

The BCS-A has been validated using two different response style formats – ordinal and ratio. The BCS-A-ordinal uses a categorical response style (‘this did not happen to me’, ‘once or twice’, ‘every few weeks’, ‘about once a week’, or ‘several times a week or more’). The BCS-A-ratio uses a response style that asks about the number of times an event happened (never, 1 time, 2 times, 3 times, 4 times etc).

The ordinal measurement approach may be more straight forward and less demanding for participants to answer, if that is a concern. However, the ratio measurement approach may have greater sensitivity to change which may be a consideration if the scale is being administered to assess change over time.

  • swap_vertical_circlelibrary_booksReferences (1)
    1. Thomas, H.J, Scott, J.G, Coates, J.M and Connor, J.P (2019) , Development and Validation of the Bullying and Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents: A multi-dimensional measurement model., The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 75-94
  • swap_vertical_circlecloud_downloadSupporting documents (1)
    Product brochure
    Bullying & Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents.pdf
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General Use
For clinical use and all other uses

Term: 12 months

Options available:
From $100.00 excl. GST

Research & Teaching Use
For clinical use and all other uses, please request a General licence

Term: 12 months

Options available:
From $0.00 excl. GST