A hermeneutic phenomenological
study of students' and school
counsellors' “lived experiences” of
cyberbullying and bullying
N.N. Chan, P. Ahrumugam, H. Scheithauer, A. Schultze-Krumbholz, P.B. Ooi,
A hermeneutic phenomenological study of students' and school counsellors' “lived
experiences” of cyberbullying and bullying,
Computers & Education,
Volume 146,
2020,
103755,
ISSN 0360-1315,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103755.
Eu não consegui pegar o pdf.
Mas o acesso é por esse link:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360131519303082
Abstract
Past studies investigating the phenomenon of
cyberbullying employed mainly quantitative methods,
yielding significant findings in prevalence rates, patterns
of behaviours, coping strategies, and causes. However,
there is a need for more qualitative studies to provide the
rich details in order to develop a clearer and more
congruent concept of cyberbullying. A hermeneutic
phenomenological design was used in this study to
investigate students' and school counsellors' “lived
experiences” of cyberbullying in Malaysia and how they
managed these experiences. “Lived experiences” refer to
the pre-reflective, immediate consciousness of the
experiences which are then subsequently reflected upon
and interpreted in hermeneutic phenomenology. The
sample consisted of 70 secondary students (ages 13–17
years from 6 national and 1 private schools) and 18 school
counsellors (ages 29–57 years). Eight focus groups were
conducted over a period of 5 months. The findings
revealed that students and school counsellors felt that
cyberbullying in most cases existed in a bullying context
as their lived experiences revolved around school, out of
school and cyberspace lifeworlds; and that any bullying
actions perpetuated by cyberbullies/bullies and reinforced
by bystanders moved seamlessly from one interconnected
lifeworld to another. In particular, the students did not
seem to make the difference between bullying and
cyberbullying: online space meant the start or
continuation of the bullying, which had the intention to
harm or mock others. All student participants reported
being bystanders in cyberbullying experiences usually in
Whatsapp groups and some additionally reported being
bullies and victims. Moral disengagement strategies were
used by students to justify not taking affirmative action to
help victims. Thus, this study further extends the
conceptualisation of the phenomenon of cyberbullying and
contributes to the field, using qualitative methods. Further
research, including perspectives of parents and school
administrators, is needed.
Introduction
The Internet and social media have provided many
benefits to adolescents such as speed of communication,
enhanced entertainment value, and information at one's
finger tips. However, it has also some undesirable effects -
of emerging, global significance is the phenomenon of
cyberbullying, considered as a serious form of
misbehaviour. Cyberbullying is usually termed as
aggression that is deliberately and repeatedly carried out
in electronic contexts (e.g. in Facebook, Whatsapp,
Instagram, Twitter, blogs) against persons who cannot
easily defend themselves (Hinduja & Patchin, 2017;
Kowalski, Giumetti, Schroeder, & Lattanner, 2014; Smith
et al., 2008).
However, cyberbullying has been defined in various forms
by different scholars (Kowalski et al., 2014; Olweus &
Limber, 2018; Tokunaga, 2010). Thus, there is a lack of
consensus on the conceptualisation of cyberbullying: as an
extension of the traditional conception of bullying or as a
deviant behaviour in cyberspace with other cyber
behaviours such as cyber harassment, stalking, and
flaming considered as part of cyberbullying (Tokunaga,
2010; Vandebosch & Van Cleemput, 2008). Consequently,
this has led to different operationalisations of the
phenomenon and resulted in inconsistent results,
particularly in the range of prevalence rates (Olweus &
Limber, 2018; Tokunaga, 2010; Vandebosch & Van
Cleemput, 2008).
Cyberbullying among adolescents has been mainly
investigated using quantitative methods, usually through
online or paper-and-pencil school surveys (Kowalski et al.,
2014; Vandebosch & Van Cleemput, 2008). While these
studies have yielded significant findings in prevalence
rates, patterns of behaviours, coping strategies, and
causes, there is a need for more qualitative studies to
provide the rich details, e.g. to develop a clearer and more
congruent concept of cyberbullying (Patchin & Hinduja,
2013; Vandebosch & Van Cleemput, 2008). Thus, the
present study uses qualitative methodology that is
hermeneutic phenomenology, to explore a complex
phenomenon that is difficult to investigate, given its
insidious nature. Phenomenology is a human science with
its own theoretical and philosophical approach that
diverges from other sciences. It is the systematic study of
lived experience and its internal meanings (Husserl,
1970). Hermeneutics enhances the interpretive element to
elucidate assumptions and meanings in the transcribed
texts of participants' interviews that participants
themselves may have difficulty expressing, hence offering
a rich and dense description of the phenomenon under
investigation (van Manen, 2017, 1990).
Hermeneutic phenomenology as a research methodology,
can uncover the distinctiveness of individuals' experiences
in their personal, everyday contexts (Gadamer, 1997;
Heidegger, 1962). To date, there is no hermeneutic
phenomenological study of cyberbullying, particularly not
with Malaysian participants. This study yields findings and
conclusions that contribute to the field and extends on the
conception of cyberbullying. These results are derived
from themes that emerge from the hermeneutic analysis
but due to the constraints of time and space, only three:
those of Interconnected Lifeworlds, Awareness and
Coping Strategies, and Bystander Effect are discussed in
this paper.
One problem that besets the extant literature is that the
concept of cyberbullying varies, usually beginning with
definitions of “traditional” bullying, while the
differentiation from other types of “deviant” cyber actions,
such as cyber aggression, cyber stalking, cyber
harassment, and flaming is often not clearly established
(Vandebosch & Van Cleemput, 2008). Thus, there have
been dissimilar and comparatively conflicting findings as
studies use different definitions and operationalisations of
cyberbullying (Cassidy, Faucher, & Jackson, 2013; Olweus
& Limber, 2018). Smith et al. (2008, p. 376) define
cyberbullying as “an aggressive, intentional act carried
out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of
contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who
cannot easily defend him or herself.” Of similar view is
Hinduja and Patchin's (2009, p. 5) definition of
cyberbullying as “wilful and repeated harm inflicted
through the use of computers, cell phones, and other
electronic devices.” This study adopts Smith et al. (2008)'s
definition of cyberbullying as an intentional, repeated act
of aggression by an individual or groups using online
media and platforms.
There is consensus in the research literature that bullying
is a form of aggression in which a student is subjected
repeatedly and intentionally to negative actions from one
or more students (Li, 2007; Olweus & Limber, 2018;
Smith, 2013). Smith and his colleagues suggest that
cyberbullying is a subset of traditional bullying with the
same criteria of aggression, repetition, power imbalance,
and intentionality to do harm except that in cyberbullying,
it is carried out using electronic means (Olweus & Limber,
2018; Smith, 2013; Smith et al., 2008). However, there are
some other discernible features of cyberbullying that
differentiate it from bullying. Scholars have found
differences such as technological expertise, status gained
(either direct or indirect), possibility of anonymity,
complicated bystander roles, relative distance, and the
many impediments in escaping from harassment (Berne et
al., 2013; Nilan, Burgess, Hobbs, Threadgold, &
Alexander, 2015; Smith, 2013). More importantly,
cyberbullying in contrast to bullying is continuous and
never ends due to the anonymity of perpetrators and the
replicability affordance of the Internet, and it has the
ability to invade private living spaces of the victims
(Livingstone, Stoilova, & Kelly, 2016; Smith, 2013).
Another distinct research direction follows the argument
that cyberbullying is a unique phenomenon with its own
specific characteristics. Cyberbullying occurring under
continual technological and societal changes, as such, can
take various forms and emerge in multiple contexts in
contrast to bullying. Such studies tended to perceive
cyberbullying as a form of cyber aggression, cyber
victimisation, cyber revenge, or cyber harassment (Cohen-
almagor, 2015; Fenaughty & Harré, 2013; Rey, Quintaba-
Orts, Merida-Lopez, & Extremera, 2018; Tokunaga, 2010;
Willard, 2007). Willard (2007) proposed a taxonomy of
different forms of cyberbullying that included harassment,
flaming, deception and trickery, cyber-stalking, sexting,
and impersonation. Fenaughty and Harré (2013) argued
that cyberbullying was a subset of electronic harassment
that occured in online contexts.
Faced with these different conceptions and
operationalisations, not all research participants in survey
studies might understand and agree on the cyber activities
that were used to measure cyberbullying, hence leading to
probably unreliable results (Kowalski et al., 2014;
Vandebosch & Van Cleemput, 2008). Thus, there is a need
for the development of a consensual and clear concept of
cyberbullying that would enable scholars to create valid
and reliable measures (Olweus & Limber, 2018;
Vandebosch & Van Cleemput, 2008).
The lack of consensus in the conceptualisation of
cyberbullying resulted in a wide array of prevalence
estimates, with individual authors citing rates ranging
from 3% and over 40% (Olweus & Limber, 2018; Schultze-
Krumbholz & Scheithauer, 2015; Smith, 2013). A 2018
Pew Research Centre survey of 743 American adolescents
found that 59% personally experienced what the survey's
authors understood as cyberbullying and regarded this
phenomenon as a major problem for themselves and their
peers (Docu, 2018). A 2017 study of cyberbullying among
399 Malaysian young adults between ages 17–36 years
found that 44% of the respondents had been bullied online
while 35% of them reported that they had bullied someone
online and 70% had witnessed cyberbullying on social
media platforms (Nair, 2017). The Digi CyberSAFE in
Schools study of 14,000 Malaysian students reported that
26% had been bullied online, with students aged 13–15
years bullied most frequently (Digital News Asia, 2012). In
comparative studies, the EU Kids Online study compared
findings in 2010 and 2014, with a reported slight increase
in cyberbullying, from 8% of 9 to 16-year-olds to 12%
across seven countries (Livingstone et al., 2016).
Prevalence rates thus differ widely among different
research studies, most probably as a result of differing
tools, definitions and contexts used and under-reporting
incidences (Foody, Samara, & Carlbring, 2015; Kowalski
et al., 2014; Livingstone, Davidson, & Bryce, 2017).
Under-reporting of cyberbullying incidents occurred
mainly due to fear of adults especially parents who might
take away victims' access to the Internet (Addington,
2013; Tokunaga, 2010).
Previous studies reported that cyberbullying very often
happened on social networking platforms, or by text
messages, and phone calls (Redmond, Lock, & Smart,
2018; Livingstone et al., 2016). Forms of adolescent
cyberbullying usually comprise exclusion (being ignored or
excluded from chat groups), personal attacks (called
names, picked on, made fun of), trolling and rumour
mongering (spreading bad rumours) (Nilan et al., 2015;
Patchin & Hinduja, 2006). These behaviours are quite
similar to relational, psychological, and indirect forms of
traditional bullying. In fact, studies had shown a strong
correlation between cyberbullying and bullying with
significant similarities between cyberbullies and
traditional bullies and between cyberbullying victims and
traditional victims (Cassidy et al., 2013; Kowalski et al.,
2014; Smith, 2013). Online bullying sometimes reveals
itself as an unintentional type of bullying: rumours and
embarrassing photos rapidly spread even when the initial
disseminator of this information does not mean to bully.
This is, however, as harmful as intentional bullying as the
referenced person nevertheless experiences the negative
effects of the embarrassment and rumour-mongering
(Huang & Chou, 2013; Rigby, Smith, & Pepler, 2004).
Age and gender differences have been widely researched
in cyberbullying studies (Foody et al., 2015; Kowalski et
al., 2014). Results indicate that cyberbullying during
adolescence may continue into early adulthood (Beran,
Rinaldi, Bickham, & Rich, 2012; Foody et al., 2015;
Kowalski, Limber, & McCord, 2018). It seems that while
more boys and younger adolescents are the perpetrators
in traditional bullying, cyberbullying appears to be
perpetrated equally among boys and girls and across the
adolescent years Livingstone et al., 2016; Foody et al.,
2015).
Estimations diverge as to the percentage of cybervictims
who know the cyberbullies, ranging from anywhere
between 40% and 80% (Cassidy et al., 2013; Kowalski et
al., 2014; Smith et al., 2008; Vandebosch & Van Cleemput,
2008). Consequently, while anonymity may be a distinctive
feature in some cases of cyberbullying, it should not be
ignored that the majority of victims do recognise the
persons who are cyberbullying them. Due to its insidious
and widespread nature, cyberbullying has been found to
have even more severe long term effects in victims than
bullying (Foody et al., 2015; Ho, Chen, & Ng, 2017).
Victims report a wide range of strategies to cope with
cyberbullying. These include ignoring the incident and
confronting the bully but were widely perceived as not
helpful or solving the problem (DeSmet et al., 2015;
Fenaughty & Harré, 2013). Requesting assistance from
family, friends or teachers was only deemed useful if the
victims received supportive reactions (Fenaughty & Harré,
2013; Ho et al., 2017). A consistent finding from
cyberbullying studies was that cybervictims were more
likely to report the victimisation to their parents and
friends than to authorities (Addington, 2013). As most of
the cyberbullying incidences occurred as a result of their
associations with their school lifeworlds, cybervictims
tended to seek help from their teachers or school
counsellors (Addington, 2013). Other studies revealed
strategies that included reporting to social media
providers to block bullies ((DeSmet et al., 2015;
Livingstone et al., 2017).
Cyberbullies tend to behave aggressively online in ways
they would not during face-to-face interactions with
potential victims, because the social customs that restrain
them are weaker when they cannot be recognised and
because they cannot perceive the emotional effect on their
victims (Kowalski et al., 2014; Livingstone et al., 2017).
The anonymity afforded online allows for disinhibition
among bullies as the normal societal norms no longer
inhibit their behaviour (Udris, 2014). Suler (2004) argued
that ‘associative anonymity’ allowed people to hide or alter
their true identity and disconnect their actions online from
the offline world. Such invisibility endowed people with
the courage to carry out actions that they otherwise would
never consider (Suler, 2004).
Cyberbullies tend to use moral disengagement strategies
to rationalise their behaviour online (Bauman & Yoon,
2014; Cassidy et al., 2013). Transferring the theory of
moral disengagement to the online context suggests that it
encourages harmful conduct by decreasing prosocial
behaviour and anticipatory self-censure, thus enabling
individuals to behave in ways that are contrary to their
basic moral values (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, &
Pastorelli, 1996). Cyberbullies tend to disparage their
victims and link their actions to worthy causes in order to
justify their misconduct and aggression (Bandura et al.,
1996; Bauman & Yoon, 2014; Patterson, 2016).
Increasingly, bystanders are gaining importance in
cyberbullying studies as bullies and cyberbullies depend
on bystanders to achieve their goals of prominent status,
prestige or dominance (Bastiaensens et al., 2014;
Patterson, Allan, & Cross, 2017; Salmivalli, Voeten, &
Poskiparta, 2011). It has been recognised that bystanders
can affect the bullying process and outcome either
positively or negatively. However, most bystanders are
afraid to intervene most probably because they perceive it
is not their responsibility (moral disengagement) or they
lack the necessary skills and knowledge (Bauman & Yoon,
2014; Latane & Darley, 1968; Patterson, 2016). As such,
there have been proposals for school
bullying/cyberbullying programmes to encourage positive
peer influences and in particular, to foster pro-social
bystander actions (Patterson, 2016; Salmivalli et al.,
2011).
Some findings found that students were unwilling to
approach their teachers for help as they perceived them as
unable or too slow to resolve the situation (Simão et al.,
2017). Consequently, there have been proposals for
teachers and principals to participate in cyberbullying
intervention or prevention programme training. These
tend to be derived from or associated with traditional
bullying programmes as teachers, principals and policy
makers have more knowledge of bullying in schools and
evidence has been derived from years of research (DeSmet
et al., 2015).
Nordahl, Beran, and Dittrick (2013) suggested that school
counsellors were uniquely placed to offer both leadership
and direct student support and these provided prospects
to steer the inclusive strategies needed to address
cyberbullying. In many countries such as the United States
of America, United Kingdom and Malaysia, school
counsellors are professionally trained in counselling and
are not part of the teaching staff. In Malaysia, school
counsellors may be former teachers who have additional
degrees or diplomas in counselling of adolescents. Yet,
there is a paucity of research of school counsellors and
their responses to cyberbullying. Studies were conducted
on cyberbullying with implications for school counsellors
such as more counsellor education programmes informed
by research findings, and development of school policies
and procedures that encourage and adopt a multi-
disciplinary approach involving students, teachers,
parents and school administrators (Bhat, 2008; Nordahl et
al., 2013). To date, there appears to be no study of
secondary school counsellors' responses and perceptions
of cyberbullying in schools.
This qualitative study aims to discover the “lived
experiences” of 70 students (ages 13–17 years from 6
national and 1 private schools) and 18 professionally
trained school counsellors (ages 27–57 years) with
cyberbullying in Malaysia. In investigating this
phenomenon, the main question in this study is ‘What is
‘cyberbullying’ to students and school counsellors?’ As this
question comprises some embedded and corresponding
phenomena, which necessitated further investigation, the
following sub-questions were explored:
RQ1
What are the experiences of cyberbullying like?
RQ2
How do you cope or manage when you encounter
instances of cyberbullying?
RQ3
What roles do participants take in cyberbullying events?
There is a paucity of research studies on cyberbullying in
Malaysia especially among primary and secondary school
students. The limited studies have focused mostly on
prevalence rates and coping strategies of young adults
(Abu Bakar, 2015; Balakrishnan, 2018; Yusuf et al., 2018).
A study of the lived experiences of the participants in
Malaysia would provide new understanding on how
secondary school students and school counsellors
experience cyberbullying and whether there are
implications of this phenomenon in other contexts.
Additionally, there appears to be no hermeneutic
phenomenological research in cyberbullying to date and
this study would be able to provide a rich, detailed
description and interpretation of the phenomenon under
study. The findings thus would produce new
understandings and insights that may prove useful to
extend the existing conceptualisation of cyberbullying and
its implications for future research and policymaking.
Section snippets
Hermeneutic phenomenological study
From the literature review, there is a lack of knowledge
regarding several conceptual issues related to
cyberbullying. Thus, qualitative studies are needed in
order to develop an appropriately rich and detailed picture
of the phenomenon. Hermeneutic phenomenology, with its
roots in phenomenological philosophy and hermeneutics,
is the most appropriate methodology and method to
uncover the essential meanings students and school
counsellors attribute to their cyberbullying experiences
(Gadamer,
Themes and discussion
Three themes emerged from the students' and school
counsellors' lived experiences of cyberbullying:
Interconnected Lifeworlds, Awareness and Coping
Strategies, and Bystander Effect. These themes answered
the three research questions posed in this study.
Conclusion and recommendations
This study aims to investigate the main question ‘What is
‘cyberbullying’ to students and school counsellors?’ and
two supporting questions, ‘What are the experiences of
cyberbullying like?’ and ‘How do you cope or manage
when you encounter instances of cyberbullying?’ From the
lived experiences of students and school counsellors,
cyberbullying is mainly seen as an extension of bullying.
Their accounts of cyberbullying were usually derived from
bullying in their school or out-of-school
Limitations and future directions
The data collected was from 8 focus group sessions of 88
participants. In the focus groups, not all participants were
able to actively participate and the views were from
students and counsellors. Future research could be
undertaken to include a bigger and more diverse sample
to include parents, teachers, the police and school
administrators. This study spans a period of 12 months
and only one data source (focus groups) was investigated.
Therefore, conclusions can only be tentative and the
Ethics approval
This study has been approved by institutional ethical
board (SUREC-2018-08).
Funding
This research was supported by the Sunway University
Internal Research Grant [Grant Number: INT-2018-SHMS-
SIHD-02].
Declaration of competing interest
None.
References (61)
V. Balakrishnan
Actions, emotional reactions and cyberbullying
– from the lens of bullies, victims, bully-victims
and bystanders among Malaysian young adults
Telematics and Informatics
(2018)
S. Bastiaensens et al.
Cyberbullying on social network sites. An
experimental study into bystanders'
behavioural intentions to help the victim or
reinforce the bully
Computers in Human Behavior
(2014)
S. Berne et al.
Cyberbullying assessment instruments: A
systematic review
Aggression and Violent Behavior
(2013)
A. DeSmet et al.
Secondary school educators' perceptions and
practices in handling cyberbullying among
adolescents: A cluster analysis
Computers and Education
(2015)
J. Fenaughty et al.
Factors associated with young people's
successful resolution of distressing electronic
harassment
Computers and Education
(2013)
M. Foody et al.
A review of cyberbullying and suggestions for
online psychological therapy
Internet Interventions
(2015)
S. Hinduja et al.
Cultivating youth resilience to prevent bullying
and cyberbullying victimization
Child Abuse & Neglect
(2017)
S.S. Ho et al.
Comparing cyberbullying perpetration on social
media between primary and secondary school
students
Computers and Education
(2017)
Y.Y. Huang et al.
Revisiting cyberbullying: Perspectives from
Taiwanese teachers
Computers and Education
(2013)
D. Olweus et al.
Some problems with cyberbullying research
Current Opinion in Psychology
(2018)
View more references
Cited by (19)
Improving adolescent moral reasoning versus
cyberbullying: An online big group experiment
by means of collective intelligence
2022, Computers and Education
Citation Excerpt :
Currently, several research works have managed to
establish a direct and significant relation between
moral reasoning and cyberbullying in adolescence (Lo
Cricchio et al., 2021). Cyberbullying is understood as
aggressive intentional action that an individual take
against someone who cannot defend him/herself and
is repeated in time using a device connected to the
Internet (Patchin & y Hinduja, 2006; 2015; Smith et
al., 2008), which usually emerges into the victim's
immediate environment (Chan, Ahrumugam,
Scheithauer, Schultze-Krumbholz, & Ooi, 2019;
Ortega & Zych, 2016) such us schoolmates or friends.
Cyberbullying effects on the psychological health of
adolescent victims and its directly related with
anxiety, depression, stress or frustration (Evangelio
et al., 2022).
Show abstract
Identification, Witnessing and Reaction to School
Bullying Behaviour in Secondary Education
2023, Child Indicators Research
The Prevalence and Association of Cyberbullying
and Depression in the Malaysian Adolescent
Population During the COVID-19 Pandemic
2023, Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies
Exploring Definition of Cyberbullying and its
Forms From the Perspective of Adolescents
Living in Pakistan
2022, Psychological Studies
A review on bystanders terminologies in
cyberbullying
2022, AIP Conference Proceedings
Factors influencing negative cyber-bystander
behavior: A systematic literature review
2022, Frontiers in Public Health
View all citing articles on Scopus
Recommended articles (6)
Research article
Examining supervising field instructors’
reporting and assessment of technology use by
pre-service teachers on school placement
Computers & Education, Volume 146, 2020, Article 103753
Show abstract
Research article
Exploring the evolution of two girls’
conceptions and practices in computational
thinking in science
Computers & Education, Volume 146, 2020, Article 103759
Show abstract
Research article
How we trust, perceive, and learn from virtual
humans: The influence of voice quality
Computers & Education, Volume 146, 2020, Article 103756
Show abstract
Research article
Cyberbullying in 2010 and 2015 — A
perspective on the changes in the phenomenon
among adolescents in Poland in the context of
preventive action
Children and Youth Services Review, Volume 75, 2017, pp.
50-60
Show abstract
Research article
What Counts?: A Qualitative Study of
Adolescents’ Lived Experience With Online
Victimization and Cyberbullying
Academic Pediatrics, Volume 20, Issue 4, 2020, pp. 485-492
Show abstract
Research article
Preconditions for guardianship interventions in
cyberbullying: Incident interpretation,
collective and automated efficacy, and relative
popularity of bullies
Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 113, 2020, Article
106506
Show abstract
