Bystander pilot programme assessment report: comparisons between questionnaire 1 and questionnaire 2

A version of the bystander intervention programme (entitled ‘Intervention Initiative’) was piloted during eight weeks, between January and March of 2017, with a group of Applied Criminology students.

A research project was established to assess its impact, before its potential rollout to the whole student population. Funding to this effect was secured from the School of Law’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Fund, with financial contribution also received from Student Experience. The research undertaken included two questionnaires, one administered to all participants before the first Intervention Initiative session and another after the last session.

Findings from both questionnaires informed a report submitted to SMT in March, 2017, which related mostly to pedagogical and logistical aspects of the programme (see Graca et al, 2017). The present report uses the same data to try to gauge the impact of the programme on participants’ own behaviour and perceptions of their peers’ behaviour. As with the previous report, the data analysis and conclusions presented here have limitations. These limitations result mostly from the small size and specificity of the population surveyed; the findings in the current report cannot, therefore, be extrapolated with statistical significance to a larger population. However, they indicate important trends and aspects worth considering for future iterations of the programme.