A cyberbullying intervention for Hong Kong Chinese college students

Nga Man LEUNG, Daniel Chi Lok FUNG, JoAnn M. FARVER

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlespeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A cyberbullying intervention was developed and empirically tested with 137 Hong Kong Chinese College students. The intervention was designed to change students’ attitudes about cyberbullying behavior and increase their awareness of cyberbullying. Participants were assigned to an experimental or control group. They completed questionnaires before the intervention (Time 1; T1), immediately after the intervention (Time 2; T2), and again eight weeks later (Time 3; T3). The experimental group participated in a 1-h intervention where they were presented with a simulated Facebook page showing the helpless feelings of cyber-victims, watched video clips of the consequences of cyberbullying, and engaged in small group discussions and a self-reflection writing task. Results showed that participants who received the intervention experienced an increase in their awareness and had more negative attitudes toward cyberbullying (i.e., the perception that cyberbullying is unacceptable behavior) than did the control group. In addition, those who reported being highly engaged in the intervention maintained the positive effects at the 8-week follow-up. The results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of a short-term cyberbullying intervention for college students and that level of participant engagement contributes to its effectiveness. Copyright © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. and The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS).
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1037-1053
JournalApplied Research in Quality of Life
Volume13
Issue number4
Early online dateNov 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2018

Citation

Leung, A. N. M., Fung, D. C.-L., & Farver, J. M. (2018). A cyberbullying intervention for Hong Kong Chinese college students. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 13(4), 1037-1053. doi: 10.1007/s11482-017-9572-1

Keywords

  • Cyberbullying
  • Intervention
  • Experiential learning
  • Attitudes

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