Good evening EDUC2102,
Today ill, be talking about an article, called Perceived Severity of Cyberbullying Behaviour:
Differences between Genders, Grades and Participant Roles.
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In summary, the article, researches and discusses an individual’s perception of the severity
of cyber bullying behaviour.
Cyberbullying is defined as ‘an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or
individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who
cannot easily defend him or herself’ Smith 2008
Li-Ming Chen & Ying-Yao Cheng, carried out this study firstly by collecting 707 school
students across, Taiwan, including southern, central and northern Taiwan, and included
students from three primary schools (grades 5–6), three junior high schools (grades 7–9)
and two senior high schools (grades 10–12).
The way I interpreted this article, is as follows,
One grade from each school was then randomly selected and students were given the
option to participate in the study or not, although the answers of the questionaries
remained anonymous.
The definition of cyberbullying was given to the students and they were asked to answer 2
questions, –‘During the past six months, how often were you cyberbullied on the internet?’
and ‘During the past six months, how often did you cyberbully others on the internet?’ the
students were asked to answer the questions on a 5 point scale, ranging from ‘never’, ‘only
once or twice’, ‘two or three times a month’, ‘about once a week’ and ‘several times a
week’)
The article then stats that, these 707 students were then split up into 2 groups, and the
students that reported that at least two or three times per month on either the global item
of cyberbully and cyber victim were identified as self-reported cyberbullies or cyber victims.
Those who selected at least ‘two or three times per month’ on both global items were
categorised as cyberbullies/victims.
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This is personally where I got confused when reading the article, after reading it multiple
times, I am still confused. The article describes how they constructed 17 draft items, based
on 4 behavioural types, verbal, relational, visual and impersonation, and then two
conditions, public and private. Personally, I don’t know how they have incorporated these
items into the questionnaires, because what I have read, I can’t seem to see how the
students are meant to answer the questions provided, with these items as answers.
In my opinion,
This article is very confusing, due to the layout of the article as well as the clarity of it. I just
don’t see how the authors have come to some of the conclusions that have come too.
Although they did find results, and these are;
1. In general, the visual type of cyberbullying was deemed to be the most serious
category, while text or verbal forms of cyberbullying were perceived to be the least
severe.
2. Results revealed that ‘impersonating me online to do bad things’ was the most
severe behaviour and that ‘sending messages to make fun of me in private’ was the
least severe behaviour. I
3. In general, the impersonation type had higher perceived severity than other types of
cyberbullying did. This result is consistent with the finding of Staude-Müller et al.
(2012) that impersonation may be viewed as more serious than other types of
cyberbullying are.
Although I don’t completely understand how they have got those results, it does have many
implications.
There have been many similar studies, and within all these studies, the results all differ, so
this leads to a somewhat indefinite, which means that there is a definite need for further
research to be conducted.
This study aimed to identify the difference between age gender and grade, and the
perceptions of severity of cyberbullying behaviour, and I feel that they have done that, there
are few limitations I can think of, within this study. The main way I feel that they can
improve this study is increase the sample size, and improve the clarity and overall
document, since I personally found it very difficult to follow, and found it confusing. This is
because of the fact that the questions asked were, “During the past six months, how often
were you cyberbullied on the internet?’ and ‘During the past six months, how often did you
cyberbully others on the internet?’ and were asked to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I am not
sure how they have come to the conclusion of certain types of cyber bullying being more
severe etc. I may have been missing something or misinterpreting something, but that is my
opinion.
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Within the classroom this study as many applicable outcomes.
This study is crucial to preventing and intervening the cyberbullying within the school
setting. This is because educators are able to identify which forms of cyberbullying are
severe, and therefore able to allocate resources and time to minimise the effect of the
bullying. The results of this study identified that impersonation was the most severe type of
cyberbullying, and now educators are able to use that information to minimise the effect of
it.
This also lets the teachers at the school, be aware that their students are actually worried
and concerned about their personal image and reputation amongst their peers.
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This study is somewhat similar to this weeks lecture, within Australia where 1500 students
aged between 13-15 reported 24% online victimization and 7-17% described it as bullying.
Although this study also looked at the correlation between cyber bullying and traditional
bullying. As well as the outcomes of bullying on the victims.
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Further Readings, that could be useful for individuals interested in the topic, notably
include;
Cyberbullying a modern form of bullying let’s talk about this health and social problem
 Pietro Ferrara
Cyberbullying and emotional distress in adolescents: the importance of family, peers and
school
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Emanuela Ham
Cyberbullying Among Adolescents and Children: A Comprehensive Review of the
Global Situation, Risk Factors, and Preventive Measures

Chengyan Zhu