2021-09-30-兰德-评估美国现役军人中欺负和欺凌盛行率的调查工具（英）_99页_854kb

Summary

The U.S. Department of Defense requires a survey instrument to measure hazing and bullying among active-duty military personnel, aligning with evolving DoD definitions and keeping survey length under ten items to reduce participant fatigue. No existing survey instrument precisely matched these definitions, so the RAND Corporation developed new military-specific measures, which were refined through cognitive interviews with service members. These interviews revealed issues with item wording and survey flow.

The study resulted in two versions of the survey instrument:

• RAND Draft Version: Designed with a streamlined structure expected to reduce cognitive load by asking follow-up questions immediately after respondents indicate experiencing a behavior.
• DoD-Revised Version: Structured differently to facilitate programming ease but potentially increasing cognitive load and misunderstanding.

Based on expert reviews and cognitive interviews, the RAND Draft instrument is recommended for implementation due to its improved clarity and reduced cognitive burden, without precluding trend analysis. However, wording refinements were still needed.

Key recommendations from the study:

• Replace "Harmfully trick or abuse you" with "Subject you to a cruel prank or abuse you."
• Modify the examples and wording for "Try to humiliate you" and "Hurtfully insult you."
• Remove Question 25 (open-text comment request) and Question 26 (online misconduct check for specific responses) due to concerns regarding data confidentiality and survey confusion.
• Avoid using "misconduct" terminology in item descriptions.

Conclusion
The RAND-developed instrument provides a clearer and more cognitively efficient assessment of hazing and bullying than the DoD-restructured version. However, careful consideration of the wording modifications and removal recommendations is necessary for accurate prevalence estimates. The existing measures were reviewed but not a precise fit to DoD definitions, confirming the necessity for new military-specific measures.