I. Chapter 1.

Research Plan

1 .1 Introduction

Bullying affects academic performance in teenagers in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Bullying has

developed in such a magnitude that academic performance has decreased on large scales

these days in teenagers. As a matter of fact this century has been a whole new platform for

society growth itself; ideals that were not accepted 20 years ago are now pillars of society.

Even though the growth and development the world have exceeded the ideals, it is still not

mature enough to see and understand the destruction happening in the surroundings. Not just

material destruction but life destruction. Applying the main focus on Tegucigalpa, Honduras

on teenage students in 9th through 11th grade that assist to private institutions, more

specifically CEAD Christian School and La Estancia School from what is going to be studied

is: the reasons, causes, effects and power that bullying has over the conflict of, academic

performance.

On the first chapter the approach given to the research will be clarifying the research

problem; from bullying’s origin, its development, and how it had affected teenagers in

Tegucigalpa, Honduras in their academic performance. See into the way that Bullying is not

contributing to society, talking about teenagers that are not completely formed in their

education causing them to not be ready to go out chasing real life; because the great

importance given to this nonconformity students are not reaching to acquire the knowledge

being taught to them. This produces the lack of higher levels of academic performance.

On the second chapter the center will be the investigation through surveys and research to

observe and analyze how Bullying had been affecting academic performance. Also one wants
to get more professional opinions and statements, meaning interviews are going to be realized

to professionals in this case; psychologists, teachers, and parents of the individuals that are

being affected by this phenomenon. More deeply into the focus of this research, which is the

effect bullying has in academic performance, it will be demonstrated which amount of

individuals are truly affected by it or the other part of individuals that see it as not an

influence in their performance.

On the third chapter it will be presented the final explanation of how Bullying works and

affects this task, academic performance. Now this one will present evaluated and accepted

researches and investigations that were already studied, and analyze both of the resources

obtained, meaning the data obtained by ones hand and the data obtained and analyzed by

previous investigations.

1.2 Background

The term used to connect students with their academic performance in this case is bullying.

To understand where bullying comes from it is necessary to define the term. Bullying is

unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived

power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.

Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems. Bullying

includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or

verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. [CITATION USD18 \l 18442 ]

Since Bullying it is not just a social issue at Honduras, there is a need to approach it as a

cultural phenomenon, not just talking about one country. The fact that it is not just found in

Honduran society, but in worldwide societies, there is a need to consider it has deeper origins
rather than only Honduras culture. By some resources, the point made was that bullying

rather than having a cultural origin; it is part of human nature itself. This means that bullying

may have not been called these way years ago but still it was manifested and part of society’s

daily life. As a matter of fact in will never depend on were one lives, bullying is present in

each individual at every place no matter culture.

That being stated it is clear to observe how Bullying will not just affect Honduran students in

their academic performance but it will do the same at every other country in the world.

Making more emphasize in Honduran society it’s shown that according to the report

"Violence in schools", published by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), half of

students between 13 and 15 years of age state that they have experienced peer violence in and

around the schools. [ CITATION Onc18 \l 18442 ]

1.3 Problem Definition

Based on statistics, outside this research, professionals and others it will be demonstrated

how much bullying works in the effect produced to individuals, in this case teenage students,

in their academic performance; having in mind the most influential factors such as: the

amount of teenagers that provided needed information, professional’s knowledge, books with

based on the topic, and other additional sources the following facts are under questioning:

 How much is bullying affecting Tegucigalpa, Honduras teenage students from 9th to

11th grade hat assist to private institutions, more specifically CEAD Christian School

and La Estancia School, academic performance?

 Does the statistics vary depending on the country?

 What is Bullying? Which are bullying types?

  Which type of bullying has greater impact on the performance?

1.3.1 Problem Statement

Society often has the question in mind about how certain trends reach a level of importance in

them. Honduras as a country in development process, focusing in Tegucigalpa; the city has

not been correctly managed in matters of education, economics, among others. Bullying in

Honduras increases each day, forcing society to open their arms to accept it as part of the

system, which is incorrect.

Finding a full view of how the situation has been managed or has not been dealt with

correctly will lead into a short but, concrete amount of variables to solve this social issue.

Honduran society will have a voice, as well as bullying itself will have its own based on

investigations, professionals and paper works. Truth is bullying is affecting every aspect of

daily life, how will it not be affecting the most common area?

1.3.2 Problem Formulation

The lack of interest on bullying side effects in society makes academic performance low its

normal rates as well to damage Tegucigalpa’s teenager’s stability.

1.4 Project Objective

1.4.1 General Objective

Present what is bullying, and the major influence it has in academic performance, more into

Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

1.4.2 Specific Objectives

• Analyze how bullying influences academic performance.

• Identify the most common bullying types that influence academic performance.
• Identify the impact bullying have in Tegucigalpa, Honduras CEAD Christian School

and La Estancia School.

1.5 Hypothesis

Academic performance is affected by a variety of factors, bullying being of them. Not just the

victim but the bully itself both will indeed be alternating their academic performance either in

a positive or negative way. Many rising organizations give support and try to make awareness

of this social issue, but still they do not manage to reach the ultimate goal which is

eradicating or at least reducing bullying among society. That being stated for this

investigation the hypothesis is that bullying does affect and cause academic performance

decrease or increase.

Independent variable: The way academic performance is affected. It could be in a positive

way or negative, this means that the focus given to the social issue is less and because of it

the main focus is academics.

Dependent variable: Bullying itself is the stable variable.

1.6 Justification

The impact of bullying in students’ academic performance in Tegucigalpa is notorious either

it is positive or negative. If it is not managed now in a future it surely could become a greater

issue leading to other social issues. Bullying had been an impact in our daily life, for sure it is

not directly controlling a complete country development, but indeed if the problem continues

increasing for sure it will lead to student’s lack of their whole education causing lack of

professionals in the country. The research will entirely be orientated to society improvement.

With this one wants to say that the issue is trying to be understood in the point of view

perceived from the affected ones as well as the professionals in this specific theme. As final
reason of the research looks forward to analyze and determine how this issue, bullying,

affects academic performance.

II. Chapter 2. Theoretical Framework

Moving forward, the actual investigation revolves around bullying, which includes types,

causes, and more of that matter; academic performance, including students, tasks at school

and so and social impact.

II.1.1 Bullying

For starters it is needed to define the most important term of this entire investigation,

bullying. Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that

involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential

to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious,

lasting problems. [ CITATION USD18 \l 18442 ].

Bullying is not just affecting children, but grown-ups too. Meaning, since the problem

already owns a background, it comes happening from over the first years of a human. Of

course it is not the same way at an adult bullying situation and a kid bullying situation. Both

of them vary in a group of characteristics. The previous definition only mentions this type of

behavior among school aged children; it could be possible that in the past years or even

decades this phenomenon was not recognized as a social issue but only a transitory process of

the kid who is turning into a teenager.

It was found necessary to add a wider definition for the term “bullying,” because the lack of

diversity of the same. Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone

intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the

form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions. [ CITATION Ame171 \l 18442 ].

With this new definition displaced we see that it is not just determined for kids, or teenagers.

Leaving aside the fact that the investigation surely only involves kids and teenagers cases it is

still necessary to mention the whole definition.

Inquiring a little further in the term, it is shown the types of bullying; there are three types of

bullying:

 Verbal bullying is saying or writing rude things. Verbal bullying includes:

o Teasing

o Name-calling

o Inappropriate sexual comments

o Taunting

o Threatening to cause harm

 Social bullying, sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting

someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes:

o Leaving someone out on purpose

o Telling other children not to be friends with someone

o Spreading rumors about someone

 o Embarrassing someone in public

 Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying

includes:

o Hitting/kicking/pinching

o Spitting

o Tripping/pushing

o Taking or breaking someone’s things

o Making mean or rude hand gestures

[ CITATION USD18 \l 18442 ].

Finding more about this, it was discovered that they not just exist this three bullying types,

with technology advances it is way much easier for, not just adults but kids and teenagers, to

have access to a computer, cellphone or tablet which leads the complete and easy access to

social media. This double-edged sword, social media, is the main factor and founder of the

known cyber bullying.

 Cyber bullying can be overt or covert bullying behaviors using digital

technologies, including hardware such as computers and smartphones, and

software such as social media, instant messaging, texts, websites and other online

platforms. Cyber bullying includes:

o Abusive or hurtful texts emails or posts, images or videos

o Deliberately excluding others online

o Nasty gossip or rumors

o Imitating others online or using their log-in

[ CITATION Ala18 \l 18442 ]

II.1.2 Academic Performance

When people hear the term “academic performance” they often confuse the meaning by

implying it is the score obtained, or a GPA, but academic performance is more than just that.

It is often consider grades first when defining academic performance. This includes schools,

which rank students by their GPA. Scholarship organizations and universities also start by

looking at grades, as do some employers, especially when hiring recent graduates. Grades

carry more weight in some industries, especially technical professions such as law, medicine

and finance. Other industries place less importance on GPA, particularly creative professions

such as writing or art and occupations such as sales where people skills are more crucial than

technical knowledge.[ CITATION Ell18 \l 18442 ]

Of course scores are the main part of an academic performance, which basically when you

divide the words, what you get is academic: relating to schools, colleges, and universities, or

connected with studying and thinking, not with practical skills. (Cambridge definition), and

performance: how well a person, machine, etc. does a piece of work or an activity.

(Cambridge definition).

With both defined terms as a one total term we see how well a person, in this case a student,

does the activity of studying and thinking, not with practical skills directly. Still with this

obtained, it remains the first idea that academic performance is not just a grade, but the way

and practices of how you obtained this given grade.

This term could easily differ towards two different directions: the positive and the negative,

depending on the individuals position in given case, if he or she is referred as the victim, the

person who is being bullied, or the stalker/founder of bullying.

The factors that could openly be affected in academics include:

o Not studying for exams which leads to lower grades

o Not completing assignments meaning not earning all the point

o Lack of partnership with classmates, starting to be apart from the social group

o Not paying attention in school hours cause the failing in the majority of factors listed

above

II.1.3 Social Impact

According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, children who are bullied

have "lower academic achievement, a greater dislike of school and less confidence in their

academic abilities," said CNN. The study also found that boys are more likely than girls to

suffer from bullying throughout all age groups analyzed. [ CITATION Nic17 \l 18442 ]. This are

some study finds that took around six years to be complete developed. As a matter of fact the

social impact this issue has is coming to greater scales.

Still it is not necessarily only because bullying is happening at school but by the study done it

is pretty much clear the weight it has inside school. As abnormal it could sound, boys are
more likely to suffer from bullying, and it is even more fantastic because this is in between all

age groups analyzed. Bullying might not be only happening at school but it is reflected in

school results because kids don’t want to go anymore, or they see it just as an obligation

because they do not enjoy assisting, because of the harassment.

II.2 Analysis of the actual situation related to the variables

Many of the affected individuals often are not brave enough to mention the situation to

somebody near them. Either way there had been multiple new platforms for victims, and

watchers of this phenomenon for them to find a way out of it. Their lack of confidence and

ignorance of education of this theme causes their isolation from their nucleus, which is their

family; their community, which involves friends, neighbors, teachers, and so on. In view of

this the problem is not reported meaning authorities and grown-ups cannot proceed to find a

solution or help for the induvial.

If the individual, either victim, founder, or observer, does not report any bullying activity,

such as physical, verbal, social, and cyber-bullying, there will never be a reduction of the low

academic performance students are presenting. In statistics obtained from National Center for

Educational Statistics it is observed that a 43% of bullied students report notifying an adult at

school. [ CITATION USD17 \l 18442 ]

III. Methodology

III.1 Approach and Methods

The approach given to this investigation is a quantitative approach. The quantitative approach

is the one that studies numeric data, through statistics that will help give a solution or answer

to the problem.
Methods used in this investigation include:

 Surveys

 Interviews

Surveys work as a technique destined to obtain data of various individuals from which

impersonal opinions are of great interest to the investigator. From which, in difference of the

interview it is used a list of questions for them to answer. In this technique one gets to

interact with the responder, such as the interview, aside from the observation method. There

are different types of survey methods:

o Personal: Done in houses, commercial centers, and public places.

o Electronic: This includes telephonic, and email surveys done online.

Interviews work as a technique with the end of a dialogue between two individuals: the

investigator, which is the interviewer, and the interviewed. It is used to obtain information

from, generally, a person that is studied in the investigation topic.

3.3 Investigation Design

3.3.1 Demographic

The group of people that will be tested is the Tegucigalpa, Honduras students of private

bilingual institutions of 9th through 11th grade from La Estancia School and CEAD Christian

School. (354 students)

3.3.2 Sample
With the given formula the number of people that will be studied from the total population is:

301.450799 = 301.

3.4 Instrument

It was used a survey with eight questions, in which five of them were multiple choice with

four options; two of them were multiple choice with two options; and one of them was short

answer. Here the link of the survey. https://es.surveymonkey.com/r/LYYDZZH