Impacts of bullying on senior high school students in Ghana

Abstract

Bullying is an aggressive behaviour which could affect students’ psychological wellbeing and their academic performance. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to examine the impacts of bullying on students of senior high schools in Ghana. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study. A researcher-designed questionnaire was used to gather relevant data from the respondents. Snowball and purposive sampling techniques were used to select a sample of 400 students from four senior high schools in Cape Coast, Ghana. The results indicated that bullying has adverse impacts on the academic and social activities of the respondents who had been bullied, had bullied or were by-standers. It was therefore concluded that the Ghana Education Service should develop a policy on prevention and management of bullying and schools should provide psychological support to the victims of bullying.

Keywords: Victims, bullying, bullies, bystanders, low-esteem, drop-outs.