Translating an In-Person Brief, Bystander Bullying Intervention (STAC) to a Technology-Based Intervention
Condition: Bullying of Child; Bullying
MeSH terms: Bullying
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      School interventions to reduce bullying can be effective but also require substantial time
      and resources. Online technologies have the potential to deliver effective bullying
      interventions to a large number of middle schools for less cost. The feasibility of
      delivering the effective STAC bullying intervention through a mobile web app will be tested
      using a needs analysis with school administrators, focus groups with middle school students,
      and development and usability testing of a prototype.
    

Detailed description: 
      While studies support the efficacy of comprehensive, school-wide interventions in reducing
      bullying, these types of programs can require significant time and financial resources for
      implementation, resulting in barriers to providing school-based bullying prevention,
      especially in low-income and rural communities. Additionally, although training bystanders to
      act as "defenders" on behalf of targets of bullying is an important intervention component,
      few programs include this as part of their comprehensive strategy. Brief programs that focus
      on bystander training and require fewer resources are needed to reduce bullying and its
      negative consequences. The PI (Dr. Midgett) developed STAC, a brief, stand-alone bullying
      bystander intervention for middle school students, to reduce bullying and mental health risks
      for bystanders. Brief, in-person programs, however, still pose implementation barriers such
      as training school personnel, providing external support, and not allowing for large groups
      of students to be trained at the same time. For this project, we propose to develop a
      technology-based STAC intervention (STAC-T) that will allow students to customize their
      experience by selecting avatars and bullying scenarios based on our previous studies
      conducted in a range of middle schools, including those in low-income and rural communities.
      The innovative, user-centered design proposed will be inherently sensitive to cultural needs
      of students and identify personally-appropriate strategies. The specific aims of this
      application include conducting a needs analysis to determine product need, building a system
      prototype leveraging prior work and expertise of an external advisory board, and usability
      and effectiveness testing with middle school students and stakeholders to evaluate
      feasibility. This proposal is designed to document proof of concept and finalizing design and
      content of the system which will be developed and tested in a subsequent randomized
      controlled trial. The technology-based platform will increase the overall reach, impact, and
      sustainability of the STAC intervention for bullying prevention. It will substantially reduce
      cost to increase reach and its interactivity and algorithms can tailor program content to
      adapt it further for students attending low-income and rural schools. Thus, this low-cost,
      easy to disseminate technology-based bullying bystander intervention has the potential to
      have a substantial impact on the problem of bullying and the negative associated consequences
      for both students who are targets and bystanders in middle school when the problem of
      bullying peaks. There is a large market for the STAC-T intervention with approximately
      100,000 public and private schools with middle-school grades in the United States. Globally,
      the online education market is growing at 10% a year and the digital health market exceeds
      $220 billion annually.
    

Intervention name(s): STAC
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): STAC is a brief, stand-alone bullying bystander intervention for middle school students, to reduce bullying and mental health risks for bystanders. The primary outcome will be showing usability for the technology-based program (STAC-T) prototype.
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Bullying; Bullying Prevention; Technology