Prevalence & Characteristics of Bullying & Cyberbullying among Adolescents

Abstract

In this article we analyse experiences of bullying and cyberbullying to know the characteristics that surround them and their prevalence. The participants were 220 students from the sixth year of primary education to first year of high school education schooled in the province of Granada, selected through an incidental or non-probabilistic sampling. For the design of the research, a non-experimental quantitative methodological approach, supported under the survey technique, was chosen using an adapted version of the Ciberbull questionnaire by Giménez et al. (2015). The results showed a high propensity in both manifestations of bullying (23.6% aggressors and 14.1% victims), detecting that these situations tended to decrease as the students’ age increases. In addition, differences were found, on the one hand, in the gender of the perpetrators of bullying (Mboy = 1.2; SD = 0.4 versus Mgirl = 1.09; SD = 0,29) and, on the other hand, in the prevalence of victimization (β = 0.0542, p < 0.05), showing that being harassed may be a predictive value of being a cyberbullying victim. Finally, it is recommended to continue the study, carrying out an exploratory factor analysis of the instrument, as well as expanding the sample of participants.