Factors Associated with Adolescent Cyberbullying Perpetration and Victimization in Malaysia

Abstract

Cyberbullying is emerging as a serious concern in schools with the proliferation of digital and communication technologies. This cross-sectional survey study examined the cyberbullying experience, comprised of both cyberbullying perpetration and victimization, of 990 secondary school students in Malaysia, with a mean age of 15.22 years old (S.D. = 1.358). The Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was used to examine the posited research hypotheses and the results indicated that media exposure (β = 0.364, p = 0.00), environmental factors (β = 0.294, p = 0.00), and individual coping strategies (β = −0.075, p = 0.02) emerged as significant factors and explained 30.9% of cyberbullying perpetration and victimization experiences in Malaysia. Overall, 13.3% of the participants reported having experienced cyberbullying perpetration and victimization in the past 1 year. Educational intervention programs should be built to address and target the factors identified in this work.

Keywords

• cyberbullying
• prevalence
• media exposure
• environmental factors
• individual coping strategy
• cyberbullying perpetration