Article

School Psychology International

Cyberbullying in Turkish 32(6) 645–654

! The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0143034311410262
exploratory study spi.sagepub.com

Harun Yilmaz
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey
(TÜBİTAK), Ankara, Turkey

Abstract
This study explored Turkish students’ experience of cyberbullying and their use of social
networking tools. A total of 756 7th-grade students participated from eight different
middle schools in Istanbul, the largest city of Turkey. A 15-item questionnaire was used in
a classroom environment to collect data. Results revealed that male students were more
involved in cyberbullying than female students. Students used instant messaging programs
in cyberbullying, and bullying victims did not communicate with adults when they were
exposed to harassment. The majority of students did not know effective safety strategies
for use in cyberspace. Those who were themselves cyberbullied tended to engage in
cyberbullying. The prevalence of cyberbullying in Turkish middle schools suggests that
schools should adopt appropriate prevention strategies.

Keywords
cyberbullying, internet communication tools, school bullying, Turkey

Bullying has become recognized as a problem due to its negative effects on school
achievement, psychological status, and social skills for adolescents (Boulton,
Trueman, & Murray, 2008). It is a phenomenon that has been recorded world-
wide—including settings as widely distributed as Serbia (Popovic-Citic, Djuric, &
Cvetkovic, 2011); Finland (Sairanen & Pfeffer, 2011); Australia (Murray-Harvey &
Slee, 2010; Skrzpiec, Slee, Murray-Harvey, & Pereira, 2011); USA (Tenenbaum,
Varjas, Meyers, & Parris, 2011); England (Boulton, Smith, & Cowie, 2010);
Canada (Cassidy, Jackson, & Brown, 2009); Taiwan (Cheng, Chen, Ho, &
Cheng, 2011; Wei & Jonson-Reid, 2011); Greece (Andreou & Bonoti, 2010);
Germany (Hampel, Manhal, & Hayer, 2009; von Marees & Petermann, 2010);

Corresponding author:
Harun Yilmaz, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), Tunus Cad.
No: 80, 06100 Kavaklidere, Ankara, Turkey
Email: [email protected]

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646 School Psychology International 32(6)

Sweden (Ybrandt & Armelius, 2010); and Korea (Shin, 2010; Yoon, Bauman,
Choi, & Hutchinson, 2011).
Bullying has been defined as ‘repeated intimidation, over time, of a physical,
verbal, and psychological nature of a less powerful person by a more powerful
person or group of persons’ (Slee, 1996, p. 64). Bullying requires two participants:
The bully who conducts the harassment (perpetrator), and the individual targeted
by the bully (victim). Between the perpetrator and victim there are differences in
power; the bully takes repeated advantage of the power differential (Olweus, 1997;
Rigby & Griffiths, 2011). Over time the bully purposefully creates emotional and
sometimes physical discomfort for the victim. Bullying often takes place in school
environment where it should be relatively easy to detect because of the likelihood of
bystander-witnesses (Craig & Pepler, 2007; Oh & Hazler, 2009). Goldbaum, Craig,
Pepler, and Connolly (2007) asserted that male students have a greater tendency to
conduct bullying than females and that this behavior peaks during middle school.
Bullying is reported to be a serious problem for middle school students in North
America and in Europe (Hoover & Olsen, 2001; Kim, Kamphaus, Orpinas, &
Kelder, 2010; Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt, & Hymel, 2010).
Bullying can take place in schools in different ways: Physical, verbal, and social
(Griezel, Craven, Yeung, & Finger, 2008; Olweus, 1993). Physical bullying (e.g.
punching, pushing, and kicking) and verbal bullying (e.g. name calling) can be con-
sidered direct bullying. An example of indirect bullying would be social exclusion
and rumor spreading (Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009). While male students are
more involved in direct bullying than female students, female students are more
involved in indirect bullying than male students (Owens, Shute, & Slee, 2000).

Cyberbullying
The use of technology has become part of the lives of many children; including its
use in schools where students can take advantage of technology to improve their
knowledge and skills, as well as for social networking. However, technology may
prove to be a two-sided blade based on the user’s intention. Technology can play
both a positive and a negative role in the life of children (Barak, 2005). One
negative aspect is cyberbullying; Patchin and Hinduja (2006) defined cyberbullying
as ‘willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text’
(p. 152). Cyberbullying also can include the distribution of sexually explicit
graphics or photos (Schrock & Boyd, 2008) intended to embarrass or demean.
The use of technology to distribute pornography and engage in harassment, threat-
ening behaviors, and social exclusion is becoming more become prevalent as access
to technology increases (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009). With the increasing availability
of technology in schools, cyberbullying will become more common wherever stu-
dents have immediate and easy access to technologies.
Adolescents in the developed world have, in recent years, increased access to
internet-based communication tools to communicate with their peers. They spend
significant time communicating with their peers as well as with strangers using

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Yilmaz 647

internet-based social networking tools (Gross, Juvonen, & Gable, 2002). Some
adolescents feel greater confidence when using the internet and as a result they
show more aggressive behavior when online; for example, they might write hurtful
words to someone online, although they would not say the same thing directly in a
face-to-face environment (Lenhart, Madden, & Hitlin, 2005). Some students’ lives
have been affected negatively due to the powerful effect of cyberbullying, to the
point of creating measurable levels of depression and reduced self-esteem (Ybarra,
Mitchell, Wolak, & Finkelhor, 2006).
Cyberbullying has become relatively commonplace in schools. The prevalence
ranges from 10% to 40% (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010; Kowalski & Limber, 2007;
Wang et al., 2009). For example, Kowalski and Limber (2007) investigated a total
of 3,767 middle school students in grades 6 to 8 and identified that 11% reported
having been victims of cyberbullying, 7% were bully-victims, and 4% were bullies.
However, while Wang et al. (2009) obtained similar data from 7,182 students in grades
6 to 10, they found relatively lower proportions of involvement in cyberbullying (5.3%
were victims of cyberbullying, 4.5% were bully-victims, and 3.8% were bullies).
The relationship between age and involvement in cyberbullying has been exten-
sively studied and these studies, too, have produced widely varying results. While
the majority of studies have not found a substantial relationship between age and
cyberbullying (e.g. Beran & Li, 2007; Patchin & Hinduja, 2006; Varjas, Henrich, &
Meyers, 2009), some studies have suggested a close relationship (Goldbaum et al,
2007; Kowalski & Limber, 2007). In his report on the cyberbullying literature,
Tokunaga (2010) found that ‘the greatest frequency of victimization occurs in
seventh and eighth grades’ (p. 280). The role of gender in cyberbullying also has
no certain pattern. Although Hinduja and Patchin (2008) found that ‘there were no
statistically significant differences in offending or victimization by gender’ (p. 143),
other studies have suggested that female students are cyberbullied more frequently
than male students (Kowalski & Limber, 2007; Ybarra & Mitchell, 2008).
Even where cyberbullying is a serious problem in schools, most students do not
communicate with their teachers and parents about their experiences of cyberbul-
lying—whether as victims or bystanders (Li, 2007). According to Mishna, Saini, and
Solomon (2009), students think that ‘their computer privileges would be taken
away . . . and the belief that if they told, adults would not be able to find evidence
of the cyber bullying or to identify the aggressor’ (p. 1225). Additionally, students
believe that when cyberbullying occurs off-campus there is nothing effective that
adults can do to intervene (Mishna et al., 2009).

Method
A Cyberbullying Student Questionnaire was developed based on a combination of
Li’s (2006) Cyberbullying Experience Student Survey and Hinduja and Patchin’s
(2009) Cyberbullying and Online Aggression Survey. The Questionnaire included
three domains: demographic information; student’s cyberbullying experience as
perpetrators and as victims; and types of media used by perpetrators and victims.

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648 School Psychology International 32(6)

Media types used in cyberbullying has been relatively under-investigated and

several recent studies have recommended the monitoring of new media (Belsey,
2005; Griezel et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2008).
The questionnaire provided a definition of cyberbullying, with examples, to
ensure a common understanding of the phenomenon. Students were asked about
their experiences in cyberbullying both as victims and as perpetrators. Data on
cyberbullying were collected during May 2010, from 756 7th grade students in
eight randomly-selected public middle schools in Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul,
from a list of schools identified by the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of National
Education as representative of all socio-economic communities. Participants
consisted of 363 females (48%) and 393 males (52%). Seventh grade students were
chosen because the act of bullying peaks during middle school, as well as the fact
that parallel research in other national settings has been conducted specifically on
7th-grade students (e.g. Li, 2006; Goldbaum et al., 2007; Tokunaga, 2010).

Results
Of the 756 7th-grade students, 16.9% reported having been bullied and 4.1% self-
reported data that they were bullies. Of all respondents, 17.9% reported that they
were cyberbullied and 6.4% were cyberbullies. Of the victims, 9.8% reported being
cyberbullied ‘once’, 5.7% of the students were cyberbullied ‘a few times’, and 0.5%
of the students indicated they were cyberbullied ‘virtually every day’.
Did those students who were cyberbullied know their cyberbullies? The data
showed that 26.9% of those who were cyberbully victims were being harassed by
their own schoolmates, 15.9% by cyberbullies from outside of the schools, and
57.2% by strangers.
While 4.1% of the students defined themselves as a bully, 6.4% of the students
responded that they had at some time cyberbullied others. When we look at how
often they cyberbullied, 4.5% of the students had cyberbullied another at least
once, 1.5% of them had cyberbullied a few times, 1.9% of them conducted cyber-
bullying many times, and only 0.3% of them cyberbullied almost every day. The
data showed that 25.9% of the students expressed that they knew someone who
had been cyberbullied; however, 45.7% said they had been bystanders to cyber-
bullying. Victims were asked how they were cyberbullied and perpetrators were
asked how they conducted cyberbullying. As seen in Table 1, the most common
harassment behaviors reported by both female and male victims was the ‘posting of
mean or hurtful comments online’ (5.7% and 12.7%, respectively); the most
common hurtful online behavior selected by perpetrators was ‘pretending to be
someone online and acting in a way that was mean or hurtful’ (6.0% and 12.6%,
respectively). More male than female students reported being victimized, and also
being the perpetrators of harassment.
Students were asked in which cyber environments they experienced cyberbullying.
As seen in Table 2, both male cyber-victims and cyber-harassers most frequently
experienced cyberbullying ‘while playing a massive multi-player online game such as

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Yilmaz 649

Table 1. General cyberbullying victimization and aggression by behavior (%)

Victimization Aggression

Male Female Male Female

(n ¼ 393) (n ¼ 363) (n ¼ 393) (n ¼ 363)

Any behavior 23.1 12.2 8.5 3.4

Posting mean or hurtful comments online 12.7 5.7 5.4 2.3
Posting a mean or hurtful picture online 4.9 0.6 2.6 0.3
Posting a mean or hurtful video online 1.8 1.1 2.6 0.0
Creating a mean or hurtful web page 2.6 0.9 1.8 0.0
Spreading rumors online 8.6 2.9 2.9 1.4
Threatening through a cell 6.5 4.9 1.6 0.9
phone text message
Threatening to hurt online 8.6 4.9 3.7 1.7
Pretending to be someone online 12.6 6.0 4.7 1.1
and acting in a way that was mean or hurtful

Table 2. General cyberbullying victimization and aggression by medium (%)

Victimization Aggression

Male Female Male Female

(n ¼ 393) (n ¼ 363) (n ¼ 393) (n ¼ 363)

Any location 23.1 12.2 8.5 3.4

In a chat room 6.6 1.7 2.6 2.0
Through email 8.9 2.4 3.9 0.9
Through computer instant messages 11.5 6.6 5.7 2.3
Through cell phone text messages 5.5 0.9 1.6 0.6
Through cell phone 6.6 3.7 3.9 1.4
On a social networking web site 10.5 3.6 5.5 1.4
such as MySpace and Facebook
In virtual worlds such as Second Life, 3.7 0.7 2.9 0.3
Gaia, or Habbo Hotel
While playing a massive multiplayer 20.5 2.3 7.8 1.2
online game

Metin2, Knights, World of Warcraft, Everquest, Guild Wars, or Runescape’ (20.5%

and 7.8% respectively). On the other hand, female cyber-victims and female haras-
sers experienced cyberbullying most frequently through ‘instant messages’.
According to students, 49.9% believed that when cyberbullying occurs in
schools, adults would likely attempt to stop cyberbullying if they were aware of it.

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650 School Psychology International 32(6)

Yet, out of those students who had themselves been cyberbullied; only 38.4%
reported that they had informed adults, such as parents and teachers, about the
incidents. Of cyberbully bystanders, only 39.9% said that they had reported
incidents to adults; these results show that the majority of victims and bystanders
elected to remain silent about the cyberbullying experience.
Almost a plurality of students reported that they were aware of cyberspace safety
strategies; of these students, 44% indicated that they learned safety strategies by
themselves, 26.8% indicated that they learned their safety strategies from parents,
15.4% of them were taught in schools, and 13.8% responded that they had learned
from other sources, including online. It is perhaps significant that all those students
who knew of safety strategies about half were self-taught; an approximately equal
number did not know of safety strategies to use when online.
T-test for equality of means was performed to explore cyberbullying gender
differences; results indicated that there is a significant difference between female
and male students (t(736) ¼ 3.53; p < 0.001). Male students were involved in cyber-
bullying, as perpetrators and victims, more frequently than females. Female
students (2 ¼ 1.05) were cyberbullied less frequently than male students
(2 ¼ 1.11); male students (2 ¼ 1.01) performed cyberbullying more than did
female students (2 ¼ 1.05).
ANOVA testing was conducted to examine the effects of computer usage on
cyberbullying. The frequency of computer access and usage influences the likeli-
hood of having been cyberbullied, F(4,721) ¼ 2.56; p < 0.05. Students having
above-average academic achievement grades were more likely to be involved in
cyberbullying as both perpetrators and as victims [F(2,706) ¼ 3.29; p < 0.05 and
F(2,707) ¼ 7.60; p < 0.01, respectively].

Discussion
These results parallel the conclusions of other research that cyberbullying is a
problem. Support, too, is provided to indicate that a significant number of students
(45.7%) reported that they had witnessed cyberbullying behaviors as bystanders,
even though they were not directly involved or affected by these behaviors. In
findings from studies conducted by Erdur-Baker (2010), male students were
shown to be involved in both cyberbullying as either victim or bully more fre-
quently than females. Cyberbullying occurs more often out of schools; the majority
of cyberbully victims indicated that they did not know who perpetrated the harass-
ment (Li, 2005).
The greater the computer access, the more that cyberbullying behavior occurs.
One of the most common uses of internet communication tools is instant messaging
programs. When students use instant message programs frequently, they increase
their exposure to cyberbullying. Students playing massive multi-player online games
have increased exposure to cyberbullying both as victims and as perpetrators. It is
important to examine new strategies to prevent cyberbullying (Griezel et al., 2008;
Smith et al., 2008).

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Yilmaz 651

These findings are generally aligned with studies conducted by Li (2007) and
Mishna et al. (2009) with results indicating that the majority of victims of cyberbul-
lying (61%) do not report their direct experiences to adults to get help or to pre-
vent the occurrence. Students who have friends exposed to cyberbullying similarly do
not communicate their concerns to adults. Since cyberbully victims generally do not
know the perpetrators, they may believe that talking to adults will likely not make
any difference to their circumstances.
Most students do not know how to keep themselves safe in cyberspace; of those
students who do know safety strategies, only 15.4% learned these strategies in
schools. It appears that the most academically able students are more likely to
conduct cyberbullying or themselves be cyberbullied; perhaps because academically
successful students tend to have greater access to computers and the internet and so
are more likely exposed to cyberbullying. Clearly, schools need to adopt cyberbully-
ing prevention programs.

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Harun Yilmaz is the Head of International Scholarships and Grants Department

at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK).

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654 School Psychology International 32(6)

His research is focused primarily on technology integration and use in school

settings, as well as distance learning. He has completed studies on preservice
and inservice teachers’ perceptions of cyberbullying; he currently is supervising
research related to the effects of video game playing on students’ behavior.
Address: TUBITAK, Tunus Cad. No: 80 06100 Kavaklidere, Ankara, Turkey.
Email: [email protected]

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