Influence of secondary school learners’ characteristics on perceived cyberbullying behaviour

Abstract

Cyberbullying refers to as the willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices and often done anonymously.The main aim of the study was to establish whether there was a causal relationship that existed between learner characteristics such as age, gender, residential area, school location and cyberbullying. About 300 secondary school learners who were drawn from the three (3) districts of KwaZulu-Natal Province; namely, King Cetshwayo, Zululand and uMkhanyakude districts. There were altogether thirty (30) schools which were randomly sampled, of which 15 came from rural and another 15 from the urban areas. Quantitative research method design was used to collect and analyse data. In particular, a Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation coefficient (r) was used to establish whether there was a correlation between the learners’ characteristics and cyberbullying. The results of the study demonstrated a significant relationship between the learners’ age and cyberbullying. Learners from urban and rural locality appeared to be prone to cyberbullying as most learners did have cell phone devices which they used even at school. In their responses, learners were aware that cyberbullying was inappropriate conduct but were doing it anyway because others were doing it. This seemed a common practice across the schools in the selected KwaZulu-Natal districts.