Speaker
Description
Cyber bystanders are crucial for cyberbullying prevention and previous research investigating cyber bystanders focused on studying the online bystander effect and variables influencing the steps possibly taken by bystanders. However, it would also be important to learn more about adolescents’ personal views. Hence, the aim of our study was to understand what adolescents think about bystander intervention, whose responsibility they think is to intervene, and to discover factors that support bystander intervention. English and Hungarian students participated in the interviews: In the Hungarian sample there were four interviews with 11-12 years olds and three interviews with 15-16 years olds; in the English sample there were three interviews with 11-12 year olds, with a further three interviews expected for 15-16 year olds. The focus group interviews consisted of two parts: (1) In the first part, questions concentrated on identification and characteristics of cyberbullying. (2) In the second part, questions targeted adolescents’ views about the role of cyber bystanders, cyberbullying prevention, and intervention. In the Hungarian sample, the results of the thematic analysis show that students think that cyberbullying cannot be stopped. They also emphasize the responsibility of their parents to educate them about digital literacy. They listed empathy, peer relationships, personality, and consequences of intervention as factors influencing bystander intervention. The English interviews’ collection and analysis are still in progress. Based on the results of our study, we aim to further study cyber bystanders with quantitative methods and to provide meaningful information for cyberbullying prevention and intervention.
Keywords
cyber bystanders, qualitative research, focus groups, prevention, intervention
| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
|---|---|
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Qualitative method study |
