Willingness to Disclose and Report Bullying Experiences Among U.S. University Students: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

The current study examined U.S. university students’ willingness to unofficially disclose and officially report bullying within the university setting in relation to attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. This study included students ( n = 419) from four U.S. universities. Participants completed a survey that was created for this study using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a framework. The first part of the study investigated the likelihood of unofficially disclosing and officially reporting bullying among all participants (two Likert scale questions; 1 = extremely unlikely to 5 = extremely likely and one open-ended question). The second part of the study involved the development and testing of a measure of TPB-related factors that might promote disclosure. For this part of the study, participants were randomly divided into two groups: one group ( n = 210) was used for performing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to refine survey items and examine construct structure; a second group ( n = 209) was used for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to establish construct validity and for structural equation modeling (SEM) to identify factors that were positively related to likelihood of disclosure (Likert scale questions; 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree ). Participants were generally disinclined to either unofficially disclose or officially report bullying experienced within the university setting. Factor analysis of the measure of TPB-related factors that might promote disclosure resulted in a 13-item measure with three elements (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control). Positive attitudes and perceived behavioral control positively impacted students’ willingness to both unofficially disclose and officially report bullying. Implications were discussed.