Cyberbullying and victimisation among Turkish university students

Abstract

This study investigated the extent of cyberbullying and victimisation among Turkish university students at a state college of education. A personal information form and 56 scaled items were administered to 254 students. Items addressing cyberbullying victimisation were adopted from a recent study, whereas parallel cyberbullying items were developed and piloted in the current study. High internal consistency coefficients and explained variance values were observed in both 'cyberbullying' and 'victimisation' forms of the instrument. Findings revealed a moderate relationship between cyberbullying and victimisation. That is, being a victim in the cyberspace predicted 23 percent of being a cyberbully. Males were more likely to be both cybervictims and cyberbullies. Neither the cyberbullying nor the victimisation average differed with regard to age, program of study, daily Internet use, language proficiency, socioeconomic status, and the location where Internet was used. Reasons to cyberbully were investigated, which were mostly stemmed from interpersonal problems of participants. Limitations were discussed followed by suggestions for further research.