Research Article
Łukasz Tomczyk
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 17, Issue 1, Article No: ep546
ABSTRACT
The aim of the article is to present ways of resolving the situations related to cyberbullying and cyberaggression that occur in Polish schools. The research fills a gap (taboo subject) in the means of solving crisis situations related to attacks on teachers that occur online. The qualitative research (online interviews) conducted in Poland at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 involved teachers who had been attacked by students and/or parents because of their profession. On the basis of the analysis and categorization (in the grounded theory stream), nine strategies were identified: educational and preventive actions targeted at students; working with the student’s family; removal of harmful content from the Internet; independent action by teachers; notifying the police; involvement of judicial authorities; individual consequences for the student; a combination of these different forms; and no response to the cyber-attack. The research was carried out as part of the digitally safer teacher project and is characterized by a praxeological dimension related to the special attention paid to the protection of teachers in cyberspace.
Keywords: attacks, cyberbullying, cyberaggression, teachers as victims, students, parents, school
Research Article
Mirian Agus, Maria Lidia Mascia, Maria Assunta Zanetti, Simona Perrone, Dolores Rollo, Maria Pietronilla Penna
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 13, Issue 3, Article No: ep310
ABSTRACT
In the literature there are more and more works dealing with cyberbullying and adolescents’ perception of this phenomenon. In particular, we are interested in cyberbullying and the effects of cyberbullying on adolescent life. What is more, in 2020 the impact of COVID-19 has increased the digital presence of cyberbullying behaviours. This phenomenon is extremely complex, since it is multicomponential and multifactorial, and many components act on it. Starting with an analysis of the literature, this work offers preliminary data towards the validation of a self-reporting questionnaire; it was administered to 650 adolescents, to evaluate their perceptions of the victims of cyberbullying. The questionnaire consisted of 33 items; Principal Component Analysis was applied, which identified the dimensions resuming the items’ variability. The findings confirmed the multidimensional nature of the issue covered by the questionnaire and highlighted three psychological dimensions: Internalisation, Counterbalance and Marginalisation. The results support the structure of the questionnaire, useful to quickly collect information about adolescents’ perception of cybervictimisation. The assessment of this information might help teachers, educators, and tutors to formulate targeted interventions to combat the spread of cyberbullying aimed for example at improving emotional intelligence, starting from the construction of emotional contagion.
Keywords: cyberbullying, adolescent representations, cybervictims, assessment
Research Article
Yavuz Akbulut, Yusuf Levent Sahin, Bahadir Eristi
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 46-59
ABSTRACT
This study aimed to develop a scale to investigate cybervictimization among the members of an online social utility. Eight hundred ninety-six participants were recruited with a 36-item web-based survey, which was developed through literature review and expert opinions. The dataset was used for an exploratory factor analysis. After dysfunctional items were eliminated, a 28-item set emerged with a very high internal consistency coefficient explaining half of the total variance with a single-factor structure. The second administration was realized with 200 new participants to confirm the single-factor structure. Along with acceptable fit indices, higher values of internal consistency coefficient and explained variance were observed. It was confirmed that different forms of cyberbullying identified in the literature were included in the questionnaire such as flaming, harassment, cyberstalking, denigration, masquerade, outing and trickery, and exclusion. Receiving religious or politic messages, and unwanted behaviors specifically directed at participants were within the factor structure of the scale. When unwanted behaviors were directed at a larger set of audience, or when the exact target was not the users themselves, such behaviors were not within the factor structure even though somebody else was mistreated. Preliminary findings were discussed followed by implications and suggestions for further research.
Keywords: Cyberbullying, online bullying, electronic harassment, cybervictimization, online communication tools, factor analysis