An Examination of the Relationship between College Students’ Cyberbullying Awareness and Ability to Ensure their Personal Cybersecurity

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between college students’ cyberbullying awareness and their ability to ensure their personal cybersecurity. A total of 401 students participated in this study. The Ability to Ensure Personal Cybersecurity Scale, the Cyberbullying Awareness Scale, and a Personal Information Form developed by the researcher were all used during data collection. A relational screening model was used in this study. Also, an unpaired t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Pearson’s correlation coefficients were utilized during data analysis. Study results revealed that college students are highly capable of ensuring their personal cybersecurity and possess high levels of cyberbullying awareness, that female students possess significantly higher levels of cyberbullying awareness compared to male students, and that there is a moderate, positive correlation between college students’ cyberbullying awareness and their ability to ensure their personal cybersecurity. Also, college students’ levels of cyberbullying awareness vary based on their reasons for using the internet and their propensity towards both online catfishing and cyberbullying others. Furthermore, college students’ ability to ensure their personal cybersecurity was similarly found to differ based on their reasons for using the internet, the degree to which they had been exposed to cyberbullying, and their propensity toward online catfishing.

Keywords

• cybersecurity
• cyberbullying
• college students
• awareness
• virtual world