Violence and aggression toward teachers among 50 largest school districts: A longitudinal examination of risk factors, negative consequences, and school responses

The proposed longitudinal research (Waves III and IV) seeks to take advantage of a unique time-limited opportunity to build upon and extend an on-going two-wave longitudinal quantitative study, funded by the National Institute of Justice (# 2020-CK-BX-0004).  Using a random sample of 4,005 middle and high school teachers among 50 largest school districts across the nation, the ongoing two-wave panel research investigates the prevalence and risk factors of teacher victimization and negative consequences of victimization.  The primary goals of the proposed research are: to investigate potential variation in trajectories of teacher victimization by students at school (e.g., prevalence and risk factors of short-term and repeat teacher victimization); to document short-term and long-term negative consequences of teacher victimization (e.g., negative emotions, physical health, disconnection to students/schools, and turnover intention/actual turnover); to understand mediating/moderating effects of various factors such as procedural justice; to examine how school administrators handle teacher victimization incidents; and understand whether/why victimized teachers are (dis)satisfied with schools’ handling with their victimization framed by theories of procedural and distributive justice, using a mixture of closed and open-ended questions in the survey.  Data analysis will draw upon change over time in experiences of teacher victimization and victimization sequelae.  The analytical plan incorporates three major areas of inquiry and will use statistical techniques appropriate to each outcome (e.g., growth models, hierarchical regressions, generalized linear models such as logistic, survival, and ordinal regression models) drawing on the extensive expertise of the research team.  The proposed research is expected to have a significant impact in multiple ways.  First, the project will produce four waves of large-scale longitudinal data sets that will likely provide new insights into the prevalence and trends of short-term and repeated teacher victimization, potential predictors of victimization, negative consequences of victimization, and how schools respond to such incidents.  Second, the study aims to explore the frequency and predictors of repeat teacher victimization, an area that has not extensively investigated at the national level.  The team will produce a substantial number of research articles, books, and chapters with the collection of Waves III and IV datasets.  The final report will present a comprehensive analysis of the trends and prevalence of teacher victimization during the four waves, predictors of teacher victimization, causal relationships between teacher victimization and negative consequences, school responses to teacher victimization, and the effects of mediating and moderating factors on the relationship between teacher victimization and negative consequences.