The Cyberbullying Experiences Survey with New Zealand Psychology Students

Abstract

Research suggests that cyberbullying continues during emerging adulthood, but is less often studied than with adolescent populations. We investigated the prevalence of cyberbullying behaviors amongst 312 New Zealand University psychology students using the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey. Most respondents reported experiencing (94.9%) and perpetrating (82.0%) some form of cyberbullying victimization in the past year, with men reporting higher rates than women. Men were also more likely to be both victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying. However, the criteria for having experienced cyberbullying of at least once in the last year may have been too lenient. The average scale score for victimization and perpetration suggested a fairly low prevalence of cyberbullying among our sample. Our findings supporting the reliability of the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey were consistent with previous research using similar methods.We suggest avenues for future research to explore the nature of cyberbullying among emerging adults.