Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to ascertain the impact of bullying behaviour and
personality traits on psychological health of junior high school students in the
Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The study used the descriptive survey design
with quantitative approach. Multi-stage sampling procedures were used to select
a sample of 390 junior high school students for the study. Three questionnaires
adapted from the Olweus Bullying Questionnaires, Brief Symptoms Scale and
Eysenck’s Personality Inventory were used to collect data for the study.
Frequencies, means, standard deviations, spearman rank correlation, Pearson
product moment correlation and independent sample t-tests were used in the
analysis. The study revealed that bullying is prevalent among the junior high
schools students in the Greater Accra Region with emotional bullying being the
most prevalent [Overall mean % of 47%]. The study also revealed that the
prevalent kind of personality traits among the junior high school students is
extraversion [Overall mean of 2.93]. The results of the study further show a
significant moderate negative relationship between bullying behaviour and
personality traits [rbp = -.501, p = .014] as well as a significant strong positive
relationship between bullying behaviour and psychological health [rbp = .731,
p = .006]. In furtherance, the results show no significant relationship between
personality traits and psychological health. The study also revealed a
statistically significant difference in bullying with respect to gender [t(388) =
3.367, p = .002] with male students being the most perpetuators of bullying
[Mean = 26.18]. Recommendation were made based on the need for policy
makers and stakeholders in education to formulate policies to curb bullying in
schools.
