Teachers’ Perception of Peer-Bullying Among Secondary School Students in Benin City

Abstract

The study investigated teachers’ perception of peer- bullying among students in secondary schools in Benin City, Nigeria. The influence of sex, years of teaching experience and teachers’ personal history of bullying, on teachers’ perception of bullying was also investigated. Three research questions were raised and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Survey research design was employed for the study.140 teachers were randomly selected from 10 out of the 14 public secondary schools in the area of study. The research instrument, a questionnaire was adapted, validated and used to collect data for the study. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research question and independent t-test and analysis of variance were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that teachers have a negative perception of bullying which is not influenced by teachers’ sex and personal history of bullying. There was a significant difference in the teachers’ perception of bullying with respect to teaching experience.