THE ASSESSMENT OF CYBERBULLYING: THE PRESENT SITUATION AND FUTURE CHALLENGE

Abstract

In the last decade there has been a significant increase in the interest of the educational and scientific community on cyberbullying, a new form of peer abuse and intimidation. Despite the widespread proliferation of studies and assessment tools on the phenomenon, there are still major conceptual and methodological gaps. This paper offers a comprehensive and updated review of the results of research on the definition of the construct, its prevalence and its impact on the people involved. Finally, it focuses specifically on the assessment of the construct and provides a brief review of the general and psychometric characteristics of the instruments used in some of the most relevant national and international studies conducted on the subject. This work places special emphasis on the present and future challenges and concludes with a number of general recommendations intended to guide the correct selection and/or construction of assessment instruments in this field of study.

Keywords

• Cyberbullying
• Traditional bullying
• Definition
• Measurement
• Instrument.