Investigating experiences of Afghan female university students towards online harassment

Abstract

The principal aim of this study was investigating experiences of Afghan female university students towards online harassment, its effects and coping strategies. Also, it aimed to study the differences of participants’ experiences by age, class, and first language. The data were gathered from 150 undergraduate female students of Takhar University randomly via a Likert scale questionnaire containing 36 statements. SPSS version 25.0 was used for analyzing the data. Descriptive statistics were employed to determine the frequency and percentage. Inferential statistics one way-ANOVA test was also used to determine the difference in the experience of participants by age, class (year of study), and first language toward the issue. The outcome of the study revealed that 54–81 percent of the respondents that forms the majority have not experienced online harassment. Also the finding denoted that the effects of online harassment on the victims are considerably low because the majority of them have not experienced online harassment. Besides, the result indicated that forty five percent of the partakers agreed to use some coping strategies against online harassment such as: talking face to face with the harasser, talking online or via phone, reporting the case to the administrator of university, searching Internet for advice, asking their teachers to include online harassment preventive matters in their teachings’ programs, cleaning the received online messages, ignoring and keeping silence, deleting from their contacts individuals that they do not like to keep contact with them, and sharing the cases of harassment with their friends or family members. Moreover, the outcome represented that there is not any considerable distinction in the experience of participants by age, class, and first language concerning online harassment.

Keywords

• Online harassment
• Afghan
• effects
• students
• coping strategies