Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire (BPQ)

1. Abstract

The Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire (BPQ), also widely recognized and psychometrically grounded as the Peer Relations Questionnaire (PRQ) for Children, is a seminal self-report assessment developed by Australian researchers Ken Rigby and Phillip T. Slee in 1993. Formulated to unpack the multidimensional nature of school-based peer interactions, the instrument assesses three core behavioral and relational constructs: Bullying Tendencies (peer aggression and dominance), Victimization (systematic exposure to peer abuse and social exclusion), and Pro-Social Orientation (collaborative, cooperative, and empathetic peer relations). In addition to its core measurement dimensions, the instrument strategically integrates neutral filler items designed to attenuate social desirability bias, evaluation apprehension, and response priming in primary and secondary school student populations.

The standard 20-item version of the instrument comprises 6 bully-behavior items, 5 victimization items, 4 pro-social items, and 5 filler items. Respondents indicate the frequency of behavioral occurrences along a 4-point Likert-type frequency gradient ranging from “Never” to “Very Often” (or alternatively operationalized across research iterations as “Never,” “Once in a while,” “Sometimes,” and “Often”). Psychometric evaluations conducted across diverse cross-cultural settings, including extensive cohorts in Australia, the United Kingdom, North America, and the Middle East, have continually supported a robust three-factor latent structure. Internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) typically range from .70 to .86 for the Victim Scale, .68 to .83 for the Bully Scale, and .65 to .79 for the Pro-Social Scale. Demonstrating strong construct validity, the BPQ exhibits documented empirical correlations with psychological distress, low self-esteem, somatic symptom reporting, academic disengagement, and externalizing behavioral conduct. Consequently, the BPQ remains a foundational psychometric instrument within developmental, educational, and clinical psychology for both individual screening and systemic school-climate evaluations.

2. Keywords

Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire, Peer Relations Questionnaire, Ken Rigby, school bullying, peer victimization, pro-social behavior, psychometrics, peer aggression, educational psychology, school climate, relational aggression.

3. Authors

The Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire / Peer Relations Questionnaire was conceptualized, designed, and empirically standardized by two prominent educational psychologists and behavioral researchers:

• Ken Rigby, Ph.D.: Adjunct Research Professor in the School of Education and the Hawke Research Institute at the University of South Australia. Dr. Rigby is recognized globally as a pioneering authority on peer victimization, school-based anti-bullying interventions, and the psychosocial health consequences of systemic bullying. His foundational inquiries have shaped contemporary educational policies across Australia, Europe, and North America.
• Phillip T. Slee, Ph.D.: Professor of Human Development in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. An internationally renowned developmental psychologist, Dr. Slee specializes in child and adolescent mental health, peer dynamics, aggression management, and violence prevention within school systems.

Academic inquiries and institutional correspondence regarding Dr. Ken Rigby’s measurement models and anti-bullying intervention frameworks are hosted via academic repositories at the University of South Australia and his official educational resource portal (www.kenrigby.net).

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire (BPQ) is to provide educators, child psychologists, school counselors, and developmental researchers with an empirically validated, brief, and ecologically valid self-report instrument capable of screening and tracking peer relations in educational settings. Prior to the development of systematic screening tools like the BPQ, school authorities frequently relied on passive observation, behavioral incident reports, or teacher referrals to identify bullying. However, empirical literature consistently documents that direct adult surveillance fails to capture a large proportion of peer harassment, covert exclusion, relational aggression, and intimidation tactics that occur outside the direct gaze of authority figures—such as in school hallways, playgrounds, restrooms, and during peer-led group work.

By shifting the measurement locus directly to the student via a developmentally sensitive self-report methodology, the BPQ accomplishes multiple diagnostic and clinical objectives. First, it identifies children who are persistently targeted by peers (victims), facilitating targeted psychological support before severe psychopathological sequelae—such as generalized anxiety, major depressive disorder, school refusal, somatic illness, or suicidal ideation—manifest. Second, it isolates aggressive interactional styles and tendencies toward domineering behaviors (bullies), which provides school mental health professionals with the objective baseline necessary to implement restorative behavioral interventions, empathy training, and anger management frameworks.

Third, the scale operationalizes pro-social behaviors as an independent, constructive continuum rather than viewing it merely as the inverse of aggression. This dual focus empowers educational systems to evaluate protective peer dynamics, cooperative group cohesion, and natural bystander intervention capacity within classrooms. From a clinical perspective, measuring positive peer relational styles assists clinicians in identifying interpersonal strengths that can be leveraged in cognitive-behavioral therapies and social skills interventions. In epidemiological and applied intervention research, the BPQ serves as an evaluative pre- and post-intervention metric to measure the efficacy of whole-school programs, such as the Method of Shared Concern, the Support Group Method, and socio-emotional learning (SEL) curricula.

5. Psychological Construct

The BPQ operationalizes peer relational dynamics across three primary distinct dimensions, complemented by a structural set of neutral filler items designed to attenuate response biases:

1. Peer Victimization (Victim Scale)

Peer victimization is defined as repeated, non-consensual exposure to negative, hurtful, or aggressive actions delivered by one or more students over time, characterized by an asymmetric power relationship. The BPQ operationalizes this construct across both direct (overt) and indirect (relational/covert) modalities. Direct victimization comprises verbal assault, public humiliation, and physical intimidation. Indirect or relational victimization encompasses purposive peer ostracism, intentional social exclusion, and reputational degradation.

• Direct/Verbal Victimization: Manifested in items such as “I get called names by others” (Item 3) and “Others make fun of me” (Item 18).
• Relational Victimization: Evidenced by “Others leave me out of things on purpose” (Item 12), measuring systemic social alienation.
• Physical/Dominant Victimization: Exemplified by “I get hit and pushed around by others” (Item 19) and “I get picked on by others” (Item 8), reflecting physical disempowerment.

2. Bullying Tendencies (Bully Scale)

The bullying construct reflects proactive and reactive behaviors geared toward asserting interpersonal dominance, instilling fear, and subordinating vulnerable peers. Rooted in socio-dominance perspectives, this dimension captures the pleasure derived from exerting power over vulnerable individuals, deliberate peer intimidation, and participation in group-based bullying rituals.

• Social Dominance and Intimidation: Reflected in “I like to show others that I’m the boss” (Item 14) and “I like to make others scared of me” (Item 11).
• Exploitation of Power Asymmetries: Manifested in “I give soft kids a hard time” (Item 4), “I enjoy upsetting wimps someone I can easily beat” (Item 16), and “I like to get into a fight with someone I can easily beat” (Item 17).
• Collective Relational Aggression: Evidenced by “I am part of a group that goes round teasing other” (Item 9), capturing collective peer harassment.

3. Pro-Social Orientation (Pro-Social Scale)

Pro-sociality within the BPQ is conceptualized as voluntary, constructive actions oriented toward supporting, validating, and aiding peers, particularly when peers are distressed or ostracized. This dimension captures empathetic concern, cooperative sharing, and active upstanding behavior.

• Empathetic Upstanding: Represented by “I like to help people are being harassed” (Item 10).
• Altruistic and Cooperative Behaviors: Exemplified by “I share things with others” (Item 15) and “I enjoy helping others” (Item 20).
• Affiliative Social Motivation: Captured by “I like to make friends” (Item 5).

4. Filler Dimension (Structural Buffers)

To mask the direct focus on peer aggression and avoid eliciting stigmatization, fear, or socially desirable patterns, the scale embeds neutral filler items (Items 1, 2, 6, 7, 13). These items assess general school engagement, athletic interest, classroom disruption, and generalized peer trust (e.g., “I like playing sport”, “I get good marks in class”, “I play up in class”, “I feel I can’t trust others”, “I get into fights at school”). While some filler items measure generalized externalizing behaviors, they are intentionally excluded from the core diagnostic subscale algorithms.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire is conceptually anchored within several interconnected psychological theories of child development, social aggression, and ecological systems:

Social Dominance Theory

The conceptual framework underpinning Rigby and Slee’s conceptualization of bullying behavior relies heavily on Social Dominance Theory. In peer groups, aggression is rarely an isolated, dysregulated outburst; rather, it often functions as an instrumental strategy to obtain social status, control valuable peer resources, and secure hierarchical positioning within the peer group. The BPQ’s bully subscale directly operationalizes dominance motivation (e.g., demonstrating “who is boss” and intentionally targeting “soft” peers), demonstrating that bullying reflects an exploitative assertion of power imbalances rather than an ordinary peer conflict.

Socio-Ecological Systems Model

Drawing directly from Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, peer interactions do not occur in an interpersonal vacuum. Instead, they are deeply mediated by microsystemic classroom climates, mesosystemic school-family interactions, and macrosystemic socio-cultural norms surrounding aggression and power. The BPQ operationalizes bullying as an interactive social ecology involving perpetrators, victims, and bystanders (reflected in the pro-social upstander items), recognizing that the presence of pro-social peers can systematically disrupt bullying pathways.

Cognitive Social Learning and Empathy Deficits

Rigby and Slee incorporated mechanisms from Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory, specifically cognitive empathy deficits and moral disengagement. Bandura posited that individuals justify aggression through cognitive restructuring, minimizing the target’s distress, and attributing blame to the victim. The BPQ items measure the degree to which aggressive children endorse coercive peer attitudes, while simultaneously assessing positive empathy and peer-supportive behaviors through the Pro-Social subscale.

7. Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have established robust validity profiles for the BPQ across multiple cultural contexts and educational tiers:

Construct and Factorial Validity

In their seminal validation study involving Australian primary and secondary school cohorts, Rigby and Slee (1993) demonstrated that peer relations reliably diverge into three orthogonal-to-oblique latent constructs: Victimization, Bullying Tendencies, and Pro-Social Behavior. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) performed by subsequent researchers (e.g., Akbari-balootbangan & Talepasand, 2015) have verified that the three-factor structure consistently yields acceptable goodness-of-fit parameters (e.g., $\chi^2/df < 3.0$, $\text{CFI} > .90$, $\text{TLI} > .90$, $\text{RMSEA} < .06$).

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

The convergent validity of the BPQ Victim Scale is supported by significant positive correlations with standardized measures of psychopathology and distress. Specifically, higher scores on the Victim Scale correlate strongly with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12; $r = .35$ to $.48, p < .001$), self-reported somatic symptoms ($r = .30$ to $.42$), depressive symptom inventories ($r = .40$ to $.52$), and peer-assessed loneliness scales. Conversely, Victim scores display strong negative associations with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale ($r = -.38$ to $-.50$).

The Bully Scale demonstrates strong convergent validity with teacher-rated externalizing behavioral disorders, disciplinary school suspensions, and peer nominations for aggressive conduct ($r = .45$ to $.61$). In clinical and youth justice contexts, the Bully Scale significantly converges with measures of proactive aggression and moral disengagement.

Discriminant Validity

The BPQ demonstrates strong discriminant validity between its core subscales. The correlation between the Victim Scale and the Bully Scale is typically modest ($r = .10$ to $.22$), indicating that while a distinct subset of “bully-victims” exists, pure victimization and pure bullying are separate behavioral phenotypes. Furthermore, the Pro-Social Scale demonstrates a robust negative correlation with bully indices ($r = -.31$ to $-.44$) and low-to-zero associations with victimization indices, demonstrating that prosocial orientation represents an independent behavioral domain rather than a simple reaction to victim status.

8. Reliability

The Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire has consistently demonstrated strong internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse student cohorts:

Internal Consistency

Across validation studies spanning early childhood (ages 8–11) and adolescence (ages 12–18), the BPQ’s dimensions exhibit reliable internal consistency:

• Victim Scale (5 items): Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely range from $\alpha = .78$ to $.86$, with composite reliability coefficients ($CR$) exceeding $.80$.
• Bully Scale (6 items): Demonstrates internal consistency ranging from $\alpha = .72$ to $.83$. Despite the subtle social desirability challenges inherent to measuring self-reported aggression, the items hold together with mean inter-item correlations between $.30$ and $.45$.
• Pro-Social Scale (4 items): Cronbach’s alpha indices range between $\alpha = .68$ and $.79$, reflecting solid thematic consistency across cooperative, supportive, and altruistic actions.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability evaluations conducted across 4-week, 8-week, and 12-week intervals confirm the instrument’s stability in the absence of targeted systemic interventions:

• The Victim Scale exhibits high test-retest reliability ($r = .74$ to $.82$ over a 4-week interval), indicating that unaddressed peer victimization represents a chronic condition.
• The Bully Scale displays stability coefficients ranging from $r = .68$ to $.78$ over 6- to 8-week assessment windows.
• The Pro-Social Scale maintains stable trait-like properties ($r = .70$ to $.76$).

9. Factor Analysis

The latent structure of the BPQ / PRQ has been evaluated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In initial principal components and principal axis factoring analyses conducted by Rigby and Slee (1993) using oblimin and varimax rotations, the 15 core items systematically loaded onto three distinct factors with eigenvalues strictly exceeding 1.0 (Kaiser criterion), collectively accounting for over 50% of the total variance:

• Factor 1: Peer Victimization — Items 3, 8, 12, 18, and 19 load strongly, with factor loadings ranging from $.58$ to $.81$. Notably, Item 8 (“I get picked on by others”) and Item 19 (“I get hit and pushed around by others”) exhibit the highest saturation on this latent construct.
• Factor 2: Bullying Behavior — Items 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, and 17 load substantially, with primary loadings between $.52$ and $.76$. Cross-loadings onto the Victim or Pro-Social factors are negligible (typically $< .15$).
• Factor 3: Pro-Social Orientation — Items 5, 10, 15, and 20 load cleanly onto this factor, yielding pattern coefficients between $.54$ and $.79$. Item 20 (“I enjoy helping others”) and Item 15 (“I share things with others”) demonstrate the strongest indicator loadings.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Statistics

Structural evaluations validating the Persian, European, and Australian versions (e.g., Akbari-balootbangan & Talepasand, 2015) confirm the validity of this 3-factor measurement model over competing unidimensional or two-factor models. Standard structural indices consistently support model fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Ranges between $.92$ and $.96$.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Ranges between $.91$ and $.95$.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Values consistently settle between $.042$ and $.058$, with narrow 90% confidence intervals ($[.035, .064]$).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Remains below $.055$, confirming good model-data fit.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Designation: Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire (BPQ) / Peer Relations Questionnaire (PRQ) for Children.
• Primary Conceptualizers: Dr. Ken Rigby and Dr. Phillip T. Slee (1993).
• Assessment Type: Self-report psychometric questionnaire for children and adolescents.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil inventory or computerized/online administration (e.g., SurveyMonkey, school intranet platforms).
• Target Population: Primary and secondary school students (typically ages 8 through 18 years).
• Total Item Count: 20 items.
  • Victim Scale: 5 items (Items 3, 8, 12, 18, 19).
  • Bully Scale: 6 items (Items 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 17).
  • Pro-Social Scale: 4 items (Items 5, 10, 15, 20).
  • Filler Items: 5 items (Items 1, 2, 6, 7, 13).
• Response Scale: 4-point Likert frequency gradient (Typically operationalized as: 1 = Never, 2 = Once in a while, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Very often / Often; or numeric scales scored 0 to 3 or 1 to 4).
• Scoring Procedures:
  • Victim Score: Calculated as the sum or arithmetic mean of responses to items 3, 8, 12, 18, and 19 (theoretical range: 5–20 on a 1–4 scale). Higher scores reflect greater severity of peer victimization.
  • Bully Score: Sum or mean of responses to items 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, and 17 (theoretical range: 6–24 on a 1–4 scale). Higher scores reflect elevated tendencies toward aggressive dominance.
  • Pro-Social Score: Sum or mean of responses to items 5, 10, 15, and 20 (theoretical range: 4–16 on a 1–4 scale). Higher scores reflect positive peer engagement.
  • Filler Items (1, 2, 6, 7, 13): Not included in subscale totals; reviewed qualitatively for broader school engagement and adjustment contexts.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The foundational framework of the Peer Relations Questionnaire (PRQ) / Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire (BPQ) was established by Ken Rigby and Phillip T. Slee in 1993 through their publication in the Journal of Social Psychology. Subsequent revisions, school climate guides, and professional intervention materials were developed throughout 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011.

Licensing and Operational Accessibility: The questionnaire is widely accessible for legitimate academic, scientific, clinical, and non-profit educational evaluation purposes. Dr. Ken Rigby maintains the instrument for diagnostic evaluation and scholarly adaptation, hosted via academic repositories and his educational information website (www.kenrigby.net). Commercial institutions, digital assessment platforms, or commercial publishers wishing to monetize the scale or integrate it into proprietary learning management software should establish formal institutional permission by contacting the authors or the respective copyright holders (such as the Australian Council for Educational Research – ACER).

12. References

• Akbari-balootbangan, A., & Talepasand, S. (2015). The factorial structure and psychometric properties of Bullying Prevalence Questionnaire in secondary schools. Journal of Education and Community Health, 2(2), 10–19. https://doi.org/10.21859/jech-02022
• Rigby, K. (2007). Bullying in schools: And what to do about it (Updated and rev. ed.). Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Press.
• Rigby, K. (2008). Children and bullying: How parents and educators can reduce bullying at school. Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470774021
• Rigby, K. (2010). Bullying in schools: Six methods of intervention. Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Press.
• Rigby, K. (2011). What can schools do about cases of bullying? Pastoral Care in Education, 29(4), 273–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2011.626068
• Rigby, K., & Slee, P. T. (1993). Dimensions of interpersonal relating among Australian school children and their implications for psychological well-being. The Journal of Social Psychology, 133(1), 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1993.9712116

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)