Research Based ProjectCyber

BullyingBy: Fallan Kruse

Topic Cyber-Bullying

• An aggressive behavior known as bullying has been on the rise in school settings. Technology advances have offered many positive attributes but, they have also offered a new arena in which bullying occurs (Raskauskas & Stoltz, 2007).

• Parents may be the adults most able to intervene in this matter because cyber-bullying usually occurs more in the home rather than at school. Studies have shown that informed and aware parents have the ability to “minimize the likelihood of cyber bullying” (Strom & Strom, 2005, p.25).

Problem

• The participants in this study are 7th grade parents from Laurin Middle School, located in Battleground, Washington. This study will examine parents’ knowledge about cyber bullying and the resources available to combat it. I collected data from an anonymous survey designed for this study using opened questions as well demographic setting questions that was design by Strom and Strom (2005).

Where will the data be collected? • My school was contacted by the researcher

(myself) first by email and then by mail.

• Laurin Middle School elected to participate and were given stamped envelopes stuffed with the survey and return envelope to send to potential participants.

• Laurin middle school is seeking to get more parent involvement therefore the school was able to send these letters out.

How often was my data collected?

• Daily and to ensure anonymity, participating parents were also asked not to include their names or the names of their children on the returned survey.

• My school asked to announce the study in their newsletters before the letters went home to try and prepare parents and to increase response rates.

• Two waves of surveys were sent out, one via mail and with a follow up email 3 weeks later to try to increase the response rate.

•  

Data Found from Survey

Data Cont.

Data Cont.

Data Cont.

Data Cont.

Conclusions

• 52.54% of parents have reported that they have not had any educational support systems with regards to cyber bullying.

• The most popular response reported by parents 56.3% said that they have limits set for their children for monitoring websites their children were permitted to use.

Conclusions Cont.

• In this study 42.5 % parents chose to limit their child’s Internet usage and 12.1% said they would supervise their children during this Internet usage time.

• Supervising and limiting Internet use time eliminates a child’s time to their social lives.

• Eliminating a child’s time may not always be the solution to the problem; parents need to be aware of how technology is being used.

• This research presents that parents need more information and resources to handle their child being cyber bullied.

What I learned…

• Cyber bullying is a growing issue that is spiraling out of control and causing severe negative repercussions to its victims.

• Parents need to understand the availability of technology and understand they play a major role in ceasing the caseload cyber bullying incidences with the proper tools.

• This study has shown that parents need additional information and education to help their child combat cyber bullying.

What I learned continued..

• It is also a challenge to get responses back from parents.

• I talked about this in my final paper as a limitations to my reseach results. I only had around 70 % of all survey of my sample population turn in the surveys.

• Parents were more apt to respond to email surveys vs. mail in surveys.