Unstructured Observation Of School Violence

School is the center of adolescent life. The adolescent learns more than reading, writing, and arithmetic in the school environment. He or she also learns socialization skills that shape their view of themselves as well as relationships with others. Teen's face problems in school today that previous generations had not been forced to deal with One such problem is school violence. Our nation has seen extreme examples of school violence in
Littleton, Colorado; West paducah, Kentucky; Johesboro, Arkansas; Pearl,
Mississippi; and Springfield, Colorado. However, school violence, also called "bullying" is not always so extreme and/or obvious. In the educational system today it is necessary, if not vital, to understand the
Each of these methods has strengths and weaknesses. Observation can be either structured or unstructured. Structured observation would be utilized if a person wanted to gather information with regard to bullying on a playground or within a particular setting. Unstructured observation would be used if one wants to gather information in different contexts, i.e. the locker room, buses, restrooms, etc. Observational methods are inexpensive, fairly objective and typically are easy to conduct. However, observational assessment may not correlate well over time, this can be overcome by sampling behavior in multiple settings over long periods of time.
Interviewing is another method of assesment. It has been suggested that if this method of assessment is used, the person conducting the interview should be someone from outside the school. Students may be less apprehensive about talking honestly and openly with someone outside the school administration. The biggest weakeness of the interview method is the time that is involved in completing an adequate sample of the student body in order to gather enough information. Another way of obtaining information about violence and aggression in school is by examining the