Research Essay Topic: Cyberbullying
Research Essay Review:
Abstract
The following paper includes the discussion about the term cyber bullying and the incidence of cyber bullying in Australian university students. The paper includes the description of the term and explanation of whether cyber bullying has impacts on self esteem of the students. The paper also includes the description of the events associated with whether the copying style has a moderate effect on cyber bullying or not. The paper also discusses if there any differences in cyber bullying with respect to the differences in the gender or not. And the paper also includes the description of the effects of the coping style and whether there any difference persists for men and women. The paper also includes the methodology and the use of online survey method for the data analysis and analyzing the effect of cyber bullying on self esteem. The paper also includes the interpretation of the result of analysis and its discussion and finally a conclusion for he analyzed research.
Introduction
Cyber bulling can be said to be as the process in which internet is being used or may be some other related technology for harming people or a group of people, in repeated, deliberated and hostile manner. In simple terms it can be said to be as the use of technology for harnessing, embracing, threatening some persons or a group of persons.
The main aim of this research paper includes:
- The analysis of the incidence of cyberbullying in the University of Australia and its students.
- The aim is also to analyzing that whether the term cyberbullying have negative impacts on the self esteem or not.
- The aims is also to analyze whether the coping styles used helps in moderating the impacts of cyberbullying
- The aim also includes analysing whether there are any gender differences in effects of cyberbullying
- The aim is also to analyze whether the coping styles differ for men and women.
Method
The methodology for the study can be described from the perspective of participants, procedure and materials.
Participants: The participants were first year undergraduate psychology students from a Melbourne metropolitan university.287 people participated in this survey, however all the respondents did not complete the survey, dropping out part way out of it.. Participants’ data were not included in the analyses if they had more than 10% missing data (this means they responded to less than 90% of the questions).The final sample consisted of 242 respondents with mean age of all respondents being 21.76 years (SD=6.64 years).The sample set had 183 female respondents (mean age 21.46 years, SD= 6.13).The sample set had 59 male respondents (mean age 23.05 years, SD=7.48).
Procedure: The given research had received ethical approval from the Swinburne University of Technology Human Research Ethics Committee. This research required participants to take part in the research when they were midway through their semester. The invitation to participate in the survey was in the form of a hyperlink. On clicking on the link the students were provided with a consent form that emphasized to students a)their participation in the survey being completely voluntary in nature b)all the data processed on them would be kept anonymous c) their decision to participate in this survey will not affect their academic evaluation / relationship with the university d) they were free to discontinue the survey at any point they wished e)they were free to omit any question they did not wish to answer.
Return of the completed online questionnaire was taken as consent to participate in the research. The research questionnaire was prepared and delivered using Opinio web-based survey program. The survey was completed by the participants online during a two –week period around their mid-semester at a location and time of their choosing. The questionnaire was completed by the participants without any assistance at a location and time of their choosing .The participants did the questionnaire in their own time .It took around 15 minutes for them to complete the questionnaire. The data thus collated was analyzed through SPSS Version 19.0
Hypothesis of study
Based on the aims of the research study, three hypothesis can be formulated.
1) The data collected can hardly represent the prevalence of cyberbullying in Australia, still it as been used in the research to have a rough estimate of the prevalence of cyberbullying in Australia University.
2) The hypothesis i.e. the prevalence of “old wine in new bottle” seems to be true than the persons who bully in the real life are similar or are same to the persons who use cyber world as the means to bully i.e. cyberbullying. The same is related to the victims. It can also be assumed that the victims who are bullied in the real have an impact on their self esteems and thus apply similarly in cyberbullying.
3) It is also assumed that coping with cyber bullying includes several measures, but whether the methods used is different for different genders as well or not.
Background of study
Cyberbullying can be defined as the use of mobile phones, emails, text messages, instant messaging, videos, and photos on the personal website in order to engage into a hostile behaviour and that is projected to harm another person. There are several ways in which the cyberbullying has taken place in the Australian university. From the analysis of certain literature it has been analyzed that there are certain incidence of cyberbullying that takes places in the schools and universities (Kowalski, Limber, & Agatston, 2012). It has been analyzed from a survey conducted on 23420 children and young people in Europe that more than 5 % of the respondents were cyber bullied more than once a week, 4 % once or more than twice a week. Great impact of the cyberbullying has been seen in impacting the cyberbullying in the students. The students who were cyber bullied have been identified that their self esteem has been impacted to an extent, and this has been analyzed in this research (RIEBEL, JÄGER & FISCHER, 2009).
Traditionally the term bullying was used in order to represent the act of harnessing some one either verbally, teasing, physically bullying i.e. punching, kicking, beating etc. but with the advancement of the technology and the wide use of internet and related applications, cyberbullying has become widespread in harnessing others. This is due to the wide spread use of internet and other new media have been done by the children and the adolescences in their everyday life. There is an impact of the cyber bullying on the children and their self esteem is also impacted. The cyberbullying has been of several sub types, some classify it in terms of medium like SMS, instant messaging, emailed, while some categorise it in terms of actions. Cyberbullying also differs in terms of the acts used for different genders and coping with them also requires different strategies and methods (Shariff, 2008).
Cyberbullying can be defined in several terms but it has a similar impact on the victim, as this impacts the self esteem of the victim. Coping methods like the intervention of the college or school management. Training of parents and their children in terms of e safety and also the development of new tool to counteract the problem like the blocking of the bullying behaviour by children in certain social networking sites, the use of the panic button if they suspect the act of bullying against them. These are the measures that also include the differentiation in terms of the genders as bullying for boys and girls takes different shapes (Kowalski, Limber, & Agatston, 2012). In Australia, both the voluntary sector and government are taking active participation in reducing the active informative websites, campaigns, leaf templates, and other initiatives in order to reduce the issue of cyberbullying. This has been done in order to actively attract the students and young children and appeal to them not to enter into such activities. Such actions are taken for public awareness among the children and young who are venerable to such type of attacks (Kowalski, Limber & Agatston, 2012).
RESULTS: The entire set of results from the study could be collated in the tabular format as given below.
| Victim Status | Gender | Problem/Emotion Focussed Coping Group | Mean Self-Esteem Score | SD of Score | n Group |
| Non-Victim | Female | Low/Low | 17.17 | 1.95 | 24 |
| Non-Victim | Female | Low/Med | 17 | 2.71 | 7 |
| Non-Victim | Female | Low/High | 19 | ‐ | 1 |
| Non-Victim | Female | Med/Low | 16.86 | 2.39 | 22 |
| Non-Victim | Female | Med/Med | 16.69 | 2.34 | 29 |
| Non-Victim | Female | Med/High | 16.44 | 1.42 | 9 |
| Non-Victim | Female | High/Low | 18 | 3.46 | 3 |
| Non-Victim | Female | High/Med | 16.6 | 1.72 | 15 |
| Non-Victim | Female | High/High | 17.24 | 2.35 | 42 |
| Victim | Female | Low/Low | 17 | 2.01 | 6 |
| Victim | Female | Low/Med | 16 | 0 | 3 |
| Victim | Female | Low/High | 21 | ‐ | 1 |
| Victim | Female | Med/Low | 16 | 0 | 3 |
| Victim | Female | Med/Med | 17.75 | 2.5 | 4 |
| Victim | Female | Med/High | 21 | 1.41 | 2 |
| Victim | Female | High/Low | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Victim | Female | High/Med | 15.5 | 1.73 | 4 |
| Victim | Female | High/High | 18.25 | 2.66 | 8 |
| Non-Victim | Male | Low/Low | 17.57 | 1.81 | 7 |
| Non-Victim | Male | Low/Med | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Non-Victim | Male | Low/High | 15.2 | 2.49 | 5 |
| Non-Victim | Male | Med/Low | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Non-Victim | Male | Med/Med | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Non-Victim | Male | Med/High | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Non-Victim | Male | High/Low | 18 | 2.45 | 4 |
| Non-Victim | Male | High/Med | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Non-Victim | Male | High/High | 16.5 | 2.62 | 30 |
| Victim | Male | Low/Low | 16.5 | 0.7 | 2 |
| Victim | Male | Low/Med | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Victim | Male | Low/High | 14 | 1 | 3 |
| Victim | Male | Med/Low | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Victim | Male | Med/Med | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Victim | Male | Med/High | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Victim | Male | High/Low | 16 | 0.71 | 2 |
| Victim | Male | High/Med | ‐ | ‐ | 0 |
| Victim | Male | High/High | 16.83 | 1.94 | 6 |
The above table is a problem-‐focussed coping measure by combining the i) planning and ii) active coping scale (M = 19.98, SD= 5.55). It is to be noted that the average score on this scale for males was 20.81, and 19.72 for females.Added to it a “negative” emotion-‐focussed coping measure by combining the i) denial, and ii) focus on venting emotions scales (M = 14.83, SD = 3.94).It is to be noted that the average score on this scale for females was 15.36, and 13.19 for males. The table above gives a complete understanding of the first two hypothesis formulated. The table gives a comprehensive and complete understanding of the data collated .
The third hypothesis formulated can be substantiated by the table below
|
Problem Focussed |
Emotion Focussed |
||||
| Mean | N | Mean | N | ||
| Victim | Male |
16.2 |
5 |
15.7 |
6 |
| Female |
17.4 |
12 |
17.2 |
52 |
|
| Non-victim | Male |
17.3 |
18 |
16.1 |
16 |
| Female |
17.1 |
60 |
17.2 |
52 |
|
Discussion:
Looking at the results of the current study we can conclude that the results of study are in line with the a priori reasoning as stated in the study. However the study faces certain limitations the most pertinent in this case being the sample being studied to substantiate the study. The sample represents a very small section of the population to draw any conclusive model .The research throws some preliminary light on the trends that exist .These trends can be extrapolated on a wider sample set to draw a very robust model of inference. The sample could be widened to improve the age group that has to be studied and which will help draw results that would have a wider implication. Drawing on a wider sample set would also mean that any regression equation would be a good fit with better R^2 values.
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