Comparison of levels of bullying, achievement motivation, and resilience among Syrian refugee students and Turkish students

This study aimed to examine bullying, achievement motivation, and resilience levels of both Syrian refugee students and Turkish students at an Islamic religion-based high school for boys. The sample included 289 students. One hundred and forty-three (49.50%) of the participants were Syrian and 146 (50.50%) were Turkish students. The mean age of the participants was 16 years (SD = 1.30). This study found that the level of bullying among refugee students was higher, and the level of achievement motivation was lower than for Turkish students. However, there was not a significant difference with regard to resilience scores. In terms of grade level, 9th-grade students reported lower scores of bullying than 10th- and 12th-grade students. The results indicated that bullying, resilience, and the demographic information of nationality (Syrian and Turkish) were significant predictors of achievement motivation. In addition, the relationship of resilience with achievement motivation was the same strength for both groups when separately analysed. These findings may help school counsellors, teachers and administrators to raise awareness in schools about issues such as forced migration and refugee psychology, trauma and its effects, bullying, low motivation, and problems faced by refugee students in general.