What's this survey for?
In recent years there’s been increased discussion about bullying within academia. Teaching unions and human resources departments have expressed concern about academic staff being bullied, and bullying each other. Some universities and departments have taken steps to reduce bullying and increase staff training. At the same time there are many individuals who don’t feel that bullying is a problem, and focusing on it detracts from more important issues facing staff.
The aim of this survey is to identify people’s different views and experiences of bullying within academic institutions. Whether you have strong opinions about bullying, feel it’s an overrated topic, have been bullied yourself, witnessed bullying of colleagues, or perhaps been accused of bullying, we’d like to hear from you.
The following questionnaire is aimed at those working in higher education – including support, research and teaching staff, postgraduates, and heads of department.
If you are having problems with bullying in your institution, a number of help resources is available here . This list will be repeated at the end of the survey.
This survey is open to academics from the UK and Northern Ireland only
- Click here if you want to start the survey straight away, or read on for more information. There's another link to this survey at the bottom of this page
How do I complete this survey?
This online questionnaire means your answers are automatically transferred into a database. None of your responses can be attributed to you, so this research is entirely anonymous. There are a total of 42 questions. The majority are short tick-box answers, with additional open-ended questions for you to add comments. It should take about half an hour to complete this questionnaire.
Participation is voluntary, and you can stop the study at any time. You can also delete your answers if you wish to withdraw from the research.
Feel free to let other academic friends and colleagues know about this questionnaire by passing on the web address for this survey.
What will results from this survey be used for?
The questionnaire has been designed by Dr Petra Boynton from University College London, for The Times Higher in order to identify the current situation around bullying within UK universities. Results from this study will be reported in The Times Higher, and possibly in other peer-reviewed academic journals.
If you want more information, please contact Petra at p.boynton@pcps.ucl.ac.uk
Who can complete this survey?
Please remember, you do not have to have been bullied to complete it – just to have an opinion about bullying in UK universities. This survey doesn’t work from one fixed definition of ‘bullying’ but instead presents many items that different people have claimed constitute ‘bullying’ in order to allow people to define what issues are important to them.
Please note, this survey isn’t for those studying within higher education at undergraduate or masters level. If you have issues with bullying you may want to contact your student union, university counselling service, or http:///www.bullyonline.org .
- Click here to take part in the survey