TRADITIONAL AND CYBERBULLYING AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: ROLE OF APPRAISAL, SELF-EFFICACY AND COPING STRATEGIES

Abstract

Bullying is a global public health issue that occurs in different forms. Over the last two decades, research has included a new form of bullying called cyberbullying, which has become more prevalent with the proliferation of modern communication technologies and the increasing rate of Internet penetration. Research on traditional bullying and cyberbullying at university campuses is sparse, and most of the existing research has been conducted in western countries. This study examined the prevalence of traditional and cyberbullying among university students, the overlap of cyberbullying with traditional bullying, and the incremental impacts of cyberbullying victimization over and above traditional bullying victimization. Additionally, the role of cognitive appraisals, coping strategies, general self-efficacy, and ICT self-efficacy are investigated by employing the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (TMSC) to understand the negative impacts of cyber victimization on the mental health and mental well-being of university students. Three independent studies were conducted to achieve the objectives. Study I was a qualitative investigation that explored cyberbullying victimization in 93 Pakistani university students using semi-structured interviews. The terms perceived by Pakistani university students as most appropriate to label cyberbullying scenarios were examined. Additionally, thematic analysis explored the nature of their experiences of cyber victimization along with coping responses, causes and socio-cultural impacts in order to fully understand this phenomenon in Pakistani context. Findings revealed that Pakistani students preferred the terms cyber harassment or cybercrime to cyberbullying. They reported a range of experiences in cyberspace and provided rich descriptions of these experiences. Findings illuminate causes and impacts of cyberbullying victimization with a focus on the cultural context. In study II the Cyberbullying and Cyber Victimization Scales were developed to investigate the experiences of cyberbullying and victimization among university students. Exploratory Factor Analyses (N = 508) supported the uni-factorial structure for the Cyberbullying and Cyber Victimization Scales. Furthermore, the psychometric properties of the various measures (which were used in study III-main study) were assessed in a sample (N = 508) of Pakistani university students. More specifically, evidence of the content validity, factorial validity, and reliability of the measures helped to determine the suitability of the scales that were originally developed in western context, or previously used only in the primary or secondary school context. In Study III (main study) factor structures of the newly developed Cyberbullying and Cyber Victimization Scales were confirmed on a sample (N = 1314) Pakistani university students. Additionally sufficient evidence of internal consistency reliability and convergent validity demonstrated these scales as valid and reliable measures for the assessment of cyberbullying/cyber victimization. Further analyses were conducted to investigate the prevalence of cyberbullying/victimization. The results indicated that there was a higher proportion of cyber-victims (27.5%), cyber bullies (7.20%) and mixed cyber victim-bullies (26.20%) in comparison to traditional victims (18%), traditional bullies (3.30%), and mixed traditional victim-bullies (14.10%). With reference to gender, more female students were identified as cyber-victims (35.82%) in comparison to male students (15.33%). In contrast, a higher number of male students were found to be cyber-bullies (13.46%) and mixed cyber victim-bullies (31.59%) in comparison to female students (2.95%) and (22.46%) respectively. Concerning overlap, 5.9% of the sample was identified as both traditional and cyber-victims, 0.8% as both traditional and cyber-bullies and 9.5% were involved as mixed traditional and cyber victim-bullies. Findings demonstrated that after controlling for demographics, confounding variables and traditional bullying/victimization, only cyber victimization significantly positively predicted symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress over and above traditional bullying/victimization. Finally, the conceptual model of the study was tested using Mplus Version 8. Findings indicated that experiences of cyber victimization are associated with the threat and centrality appraisals (per TMSC) which in turn lead to more depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. Additionally, appraisal of cyber victimization as a challenge leads to greater use of problem-focused coping strategies, such as technical coping and assertiveness coping, and decreases the use of helplessness/self-blame and active ignoring coping. In contrast, appraisal of cyber victimization as a threat increases the use of helplessness/self-blame coping. Further, resources appraisal in response to cyber victimization leads to high use of technical coping and distal advice and decreased the use of helplessness/self-blame and active ignoring coping. Findings demonstrated that students with a higher level of general self efficacy tend to appraise cyber victimization as challenge more than those who have a low level of general self-efficacy. Furthermore, students high on ICT self-efficacy used more technical coping in response to cyber victimization. Taken together, findings supported TMSC as a useful framework to understand the negative impacts of cyber victimization on the mental health and mental well-being of students. Findings also provided insight to counselors, mental health professionals, and policymakers to adopt an integrated approach to protecting university students from cyberbullying victimization and its negative impacts on mental health. More specifically, developing interventions to ensure a safe environment and promote mental health should include building the capacity of students through the enhanced use of positive cognitive appraisals and effective coping strategies. Prevention programs might incorporate hands-on practice as well as demonstrations to enhance ICT self-efficacy with a special focus on teaching online safety and security-related skills