Prevalence of Cyberbullying: Data from two Education Centres in Spain

Abstract

Cyberbullying, which is a scourge within modern society, consists of assaulting and mistreating victims via new technologies, causing serious damage. In this study, we shall analyse the prevalence of cyberbullying according to gender, education centre, and academic year in two education centres of Spain. The sample was comprised of 227 Spanish primary and secondary school students. A non-experimental study, ex post facto, was conducted as a descriptive study by way of single measurement within a single group. The Cyberbullying Test has been adopted as the main instrument for the study. The statistical analysis was carried out by way of IBM software SPSS® 22.0. The internal reliability of the instruments used was analysed by means of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The results reveal that the cyberbullying conduct that is most perpetrated, suffered, and witnessed by adolescents is the sending of offensive and insulting messages, that girls are more often the victims, and that during early adolescence, the cases of cyberbullying increase with the age of the adolescents. We consider that humanistic education is the remedy for helping to reduce the cases of bullying and cyberbullying among adolescents.