Student and School Factors to Encourage Student Threat Reporting

Threat assessment, a violence prevention strategy in which communications or behaviors that pose a serious threat are distinguished from those that do not, has become widely used in schools. In order for schools to use threat assessment to prevent violence, students must be willing to report threats to school staff. However, many students are reluctant to come forward. This three-paper dissertation investigated how authoritative school climate, school resource officers, and anonymous reporting systems were associated with student willingness to report peer threats of violence. Data for all three studies were obtained from student responses to the Virginia Secondary School Climate Survey, which was administered statewide in Virginia high schools on a biennial basis. The first study used 2018 data from 85,750 students (grades 9-12) in 322 high schools, and the second and third studies used 2020 data from 106,856 ninth through twelfth graders in 282 high schools.

Student willingness to report threats was measured with two items in which students indicated how likely they would be to tell school staff about 1) a peer who talked about killing someone or 2) a peer who brought a gun to school. Response options ranged from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” These items have been used in previous studies of student help-seeking and threat reporting (Bandyopadhyay et al., 2009; Eliot et al., 2010; Millspaugh et al., 2015). Additionally, Paper 3 used the number of threat assessments conducted by schools for threats to others as an indirect measure of student willingness to report threats.

The first paper (Crichlow-Ball & Cornell, 2021) sought to expand on prior research describing student willingness to report threats and considered how teacher perceptions of school climate were associated with student willingness to report. We asked two research questions: 1) How do students who are unwilling to report threats (nonreporters) differ from students who would report threats (reporters) in terms of demographic and school experiential characteristics? and 2) What is the association between teacher perceptions of school climate and student willingness to report violent threats? As hypothesized, student-level linear regression models indicated that higher grade level and female gender were associated with greater willingness to report, whereas non-White race was associated with less willingness to report. Furthermore, a series of three-way analyses of variance using dichotomized reporting status (reporter vs. nonreporter), race/ethnicity, and gender revealed that nonreporters had more negative experiences in school and perceived school climate more negatively than reporters did.

Finally, in partial support of our hypothesis, school-level linear regression models showed that staff perceptions of a fair school discipline structure were associated with greater student willingness to report a peer who talked about killing someone, and staff perceptions of support provided to students were associated with greater student willingness to report a peer who brought a gun to school. Overall, results were consistent with previous findings that students who were in lower grades, non-White, and male were less likely to report. Beyond demographics, we found that nonreporters were less engaged in school, felt like they did not belong at school, and were more likely to be suspended than reporters. Finally, staff perceptions of support and structure predicted greater student willingness to report threats, supporting the idea that schools can encourage student threat reporting by fostering authoritative school climates.

The second paper (Crichlow-Ball et al., 2022) examined how student perceptions of their school resource officers (SROs) influenced their willingness to report threats. This paper asked three research questions: 1) How are student perceptions that the SRO makes them feel safe at school associated with their willingness to report threats? 2) How is frequency of student interactions with the SRO associated with their willingness to report threats? 3) How do these associations differ by student racial/ethnic identity and gender? Descriptive statistics revealed that the majority (72%) of students indicated the SRO made them feel safer in school, but less than a third of students spoke with the SRO at least once or twice per semester. Logistic regression models determined that positive views of the SRO were associated with greater willingness to report threats, supporting our hypothesis. Speaking with the SRO at least once or twice a semester was associated with greater willingness to report a peer who brought a gun to school, but not a peer who talked about killing someone, partially supporting our hypothesis. Importantly, these associations were slightly stronger among non-White students, who have been found to be less willing to report threats. For example, 83% of Black students who perceived the SRO positively indicated they would report a peer who talked about killing someone, as compared to the 64% of Black students who did not perceive the SRO positively. Our results suggest that if SROs establish positive relationships with students, student willingness to report threats may increase.

The third paper (Crichlow-Ball et al., 2022) considered whether the availability of anonymous reporting systems (ARSs) was associated with greater student threat reporting. This study asked: 1) What kinds of ARSs do Virginia high schools use? 2) How is the presence of ARSs related to student willingness to report peer threats of violence? 3) How is the presence of ARSs associated with the number of threat assessments conducted in a school? 4) How do ARSs compare to other aspects of school climate in their association with threat reporting? The study found that most (93%) schools used at least one ARS, and the most common ARSs were internet tip lines (67%) and email (61%). Our hypothesis that ARS presence would be associated with greater student willingness to report threats was not supported, as demonstrated by both school-level linear regression models and multilevel linear regression models looking at the individual student level. Our hypothesis that ARS presence would be associated with more TAs was also unsupported; a school-level negative binomial regression model showed no relationship between ARS presence and number of TAs. However, student perceptions of supportive relationships with staff and fair discipline structure predicted their willingness to report threats, and student education about threat assessment teams was associated with more TAs. In sum, ARS presence was not associated with either greater student willingness to report threats or more TAs, but student perceptions of positive school climate predicted greater willingness to report, and educating students about TA predicted a greater number of TAs. These results are consistent with earlier findings that students are more willing to report threats in authoritative school climates, and suggest that educating students about TA and promoting TA is essential to student threat reporting.

These studies were correlational and cannot establish causation. They also relied on student reports of how they might behave in a hypothetical situation rather than behavioral data. Nonetheless, these results underscore the idea that schools can prevent violence by working to promote positive school climates in which students feel comfortable seeking help from staff. Our findings suggest that supportive relationships with school staff may be more influential in student threat reporting than security measures.