The Predictive Role of Self-efficacy, Gender, and Cyber Victimization on Cyber Bullying in Adolescents

Tuğba Yılmaz Bingöl

doi:10.13189/ujer.2018.061111

Abstract

In this study, the predictive role of self-efficacy, gender and cyber victimization on cyber bullying in adolescents was examined. Examining whether the participants’ mean self-efficacy, cyberbullying and cyber victimization scores differ significantly by gender are the sub-objectives of the research. The present study which was designed with a relational screening model was carried out with 185 eight graders. T-test and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data and analyses were carried out via IBM SPSS Statistics 23. Findings indicated that the means score of participants did not differ significantly in terms of gender. The independent variables were able to account for 23% of the variance in cyber bullying. The relative importance order of the predictor variables on cyber bullying was cyber victimization, gender, and self-efficacy. The t-test results on the significance of the regression coefficients indicated that among predictive variables cyber victimization is a significant predictor of cyber bullying, but self-efficacy and gender have no significant effect.

Highlights

Cyberbullying have increased since the students began to use social media to complete social interactions with their peers
It can be said that participants tended to exhibit high level of self-efficacy cyberbullying/ victimization
The findings of the study indicated that participants reported high level of self-efficacy, cyberbullying and cyber victimization

Summary

Introduction

Cyberbullying have increased since the students began to use social media to complete social interactions with their peers. Limber and Agatston [2] demonstrated that between 10% and % 40 of the students exposed to cyber bullying. Cyberbullying differs from traditional bullying in several ways. It occurs in several forms of electronic communication such as e-mail, online game sites, chat rooms, digital images, websites and instant messaging via smart phones, computers and tablets [2]. Victims of cyberbullying experience several negative psychosocial consequences that are similar to victims of traditional bullying including depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, impairment of concentration, personal injury, suicidal thoughts and suicide [8, 9]

Methods

Results

Conclusion