An Exploration of The Prevalence of Cyberbullying, Self-esteem and Motivation Among Middle School Students in Private Schools in Beirut

Abstract

Cyberbullying is a growing form of bullying, due to advancements in technology over the last decade. This has drawn interest in a number of related areas such as health, psychology and education. Despite extensive research on the perception of cyberbullying and the educational and psychosocial development of students, the majority of previous research has focused mostly on exploring these problems with samples from the western world. Thus, little is known about the prevalence, causes and implications of cyberbullying in Lebanon, especially the relationship with self-esteem and motivation. The present study explores cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying offending among middle school students and their relationship to self-esteem and motivation. More specifically, the research explored the prevalence of cyberbullying victimization and cyberbullying offending at four private schools in the Greater Beirut Area and their association with various socio-demographic variables, and self-esteem and motivation. The results of the research indicated that there is a high prevalence of students (80.3%) who were involved in Cyberbullying either as victims or offenders. ANOVAs and t-tests were used to compare the mean differences in cyberbullying victimization and offending as a function of socio-demographic variables. Results revealed that there were no significant differences. Furthermore, Pearson correlation was used to investigate the relationship between cyberbullying victimization, cyberbullying offending, self-esteem and motivation. Pearson correlation results revealed that there is no relationship between cyberbullying victimization, cyberbullying, self-esteem and motivational levels.