Donna DiMatteo-Gibson, PhD
Paula J. Zobisch, PhD
Andree Swanson, EdD
The research in cyberbullying has been heavily focused on elementary and
secondary education; however, cyberbullying permeates throughout online higher
education. The challenges regarding bullying in higher education are the need
to define cyberbullying, detect cyberbullying, and how to respond to
cyberbullying when it is occurring. Policies and best practices must be in
place to minimize these occurrences for students and professors. Procedures on
what students and faculty can utilize will be recommended based on survey
results.
Literature Review
Misawa and Rowland (2015) reviewed academic bullying as it takes place in adult
education, higher education, continuing education, and professional education.
Misawa and Rowland found that in higher education, cyberbullying frequently was
focused on racism and homophobia. Unbelievably, Misawa and Rowland also found
evidence of gender and race cyberbullying. In fact, they found that faculty
were often mean to one another.
Morgan (2012) in a review of cyberbullying found that because of the anonymity
of individuals on the Internet, they found a form of bravery by threatening
others through the veil of the Internet. “The higher degree of anonymity
afforded to students on the Internet allows bullies to have less fear of
disciplinary action as a result of their nefarious activity” (Morgan, 2012, p.
175). Morgan stressed that a plan needs to be in place to deal with the
inevitable attack. “Unfortunately, many teachers do not have enough training of
knowledge on how to respond to bullying” (p. 176).
Rivituso (2014) conducted a study using Bandura’s Theory of Tradic Reciprocal
Determinism and the General Strain Theory as a framework. Six themes emerged:
1) repeated instances leading to feelings of vulnerability and fear; 2)
distrust of technology and mistrust of people; 3) the value of friends in
college and their impact on victim self-esteem; 4) self-control in response to
lack of control over cyberbullying instances; 5) feelings of stress,
depression, and embarrassment; 6) frustration leading to self-blame. (Rivituso,
2014, para. Abstract)
A 2013 study surveyed 202 online faculty members who were asked whether or not
the faculty member could identify what constitutes cyberbullying and if the
faculty member understood how to cope with cyberbullying. The findings from the
study indicated that 50% of the faculty who had experienced cyberbullying
(Smith, Minor, & Brashen, 2012). Although very few studies have been
conducted that assess cyberbullying at the higher education online level
(Eskey, Taylor, & Eskey, Jr., 2014a; Eskey & Eskey, Jr., 2014b; Smith,
Minor, & et al.), the findings were supported by Smith et al. whose study
results showed 17% to 30% of faculty had experienced some type of
cyberbullying.
The findings of the studies indicate educational institutions need to address
the issue of cyberbullying as well as methods to cope and/or reduce
cyberbullying. Methods could include faculty training as well as addressing the
issue of cyberbullying in the school’s faculty and student handbooks (Eskey et
al., 2014a; Eskey & Eskey, Jr., 2014b). An organization’s legal department
should be able to provide insight into potential policies and protocols.
Washington (2015) specifically addressed cyberbullying and the law. “To date,
18 states have laws to address cyberbullying, compared with 49 states, all
except Montana, having laws to address bullying (Hinduja & Patching, 2013)”
(Washington, 2015, p. 24). Although state laws focus on the k-12 arena, nowhere
(federal or state) addresses cyberbullying. In 2009, a cyberbullying prevention
act was introduced into Congress, but was not successfully passed.
Specifically, the business college in this current study has campuses in
California, Colorado, and Iowa, thus, these states were reviewed for their
legislation on cyberbullying.
Results and Discussion
Our study has shown that cyberbullying is a serious issue that must be
addressed when it comes to faculty teaching at online schools. The importance
of investigating cyberbullying and netiquette issues within online institutions
was emphasized. Also, the complexities in regards to defining cyberbullying and
how to best respond to these issues was addressed. Our study addressed that
recognizing what is and is not cyberbullying is an ongoing task; however, recognizing
differences between cyberbullying and netiquette was not a concern. Even though
a majority of our participants indicated that they knew how to respond to
cyberbullying issues, there was still a sizable percentage that did not.
Our study addressed differences between netiquette and cyberbullying. By
obtaining this survey data, we highlighted the importance of schools ensuring
that online faculty understand what are netiquette and cyberbullying issues as
well as outlining how to respond to such instances.
Concluding Comments
The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge and understanding
of cyberbullying and netiquette within the school of business at an online
university. Faculty, both part-time and full-time, were asked questions
regarding their understanding of cyberbullying, netiquette, and how to respond
to it and report it. Based on the data from this study, the researchers created
a list of best practices for creating policies, procedures, and implementing
training. The researchers developed a list of best practices for incorporating
an awareness and reporting of cyberbullying and netiquette issues:
1. Review current faculty policies and procedures.
a. Are they current?
b. Do they address the procedures for faculty to report and respond to
cyberbullying?
c. Provide examples
2. Review current student policies and procedures.
a. Are they current?
b. Do they address the address appropriate netiquette?
c. Provide examples
3. Create a cyberbullying email or hotline for faculty to report cyberbullying.
a. Ensure a response to faculty within 24 hours
b. Assign a trained person to respond to emails
4. Create faculty training via webinar, tutorial, and or job aid on how to
recognize and report cyberbullying and inappropriate netiquette.
We had many strengths that came out of this study. The strengths were that the
researchers focused on one online school of business, which helped to focus our
research efforts. These results can be generalized to other schools and online
faculty by replicating the study through different online colleges and
universities. Another strength that we experienced was that the Dean of the
school supported the study and provided the researchers with a specific
database of faculty addresses. This helped to connect with this particular
sample of participants. The researchers attempted another study by reaching
online faculty through social media (Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter) and did
not have success that we had hoped. In regards to the limitations of the study,
the participants self-reported on cyberbullying or netiquette instances. An
observation style experiment may result in different perspectives on
cyberbullying and netiquette especially since the literature has indicated that
sometimes cyberbullying occurs but online faculty do not recognize certain
instances as cyberbullying Participants may also have experience teaching at
other online colleges or universities that may have different policies, procedures,
and experiences and this can add to our results.
***This is an excerpt from a paper that will be presented at the DLA 2015
Conference (
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/)***
