Effects of a cyber-coexistence program on prevention of cyberbullying

Abstract

With the use of virtual environments as means of socialization, problems such as bullying have been transferred to cyberspace. Although cyberbullying is a current problem within educational institutions, there are few proposals for programs that seek to enable children to learn to use and coexist in an adequate way in virtual environments. The objective of this research is that students show an appropriate behavior in the interpersonal relationships they have in virtual environments through the implementation of a program based on cyber-survival, and with it, a decrease in cyber bullying. The evaluation of the effectiveness of this program was carried out by means of a quasi-experimental pretest-postest design, with a control group without exposure to the program (N = 44) and an experimental group with exposure (N = 44) Of high school with ages between 15 and 18 years. Among the results obtained, we highlight the decrease in victimization and justification of cyberbullying in the experimental group and remaining in the control group.