Coping strategy model of cyberbully victims among university students

Several studies on cyberbullying have been conducted by scholars including in Malaysia to understand and evaluate the trend of cyberbullying phenomenon among college university students. Most of the articles on cyberbullying come from psychological and counselling researchers, but there is a need to look at it from the information technology side as it will provide a holistic view on this matter. Being able to create cross disciplines between various fields of knowledge will probably provide better understanding and could hopefully formulate solutions in coping with the situation. The ICT has become the main medium in communication among the students, which is among the factors of increased cyberbullying cases in universities. Besides, the inability of students to react to cyberbullying activities from lack of knowledge, inability to manipulate ICT functions to prevent them from being cyberbullied, and lack of coping strategy model are the main problems to be solved. Therefore, the objectives of this thesis are (1) to identify the appropriate coping strategy for cyberbully-victims; (2) to propose an effective coping strategy model for cyberbully-victim; and (3) to access the students’ knowledge on technological prevention action in coping with cyberbullying. This study was conducted at NDUM, Kuala Lumpur using the Approach-avoidance Coping Strategy Model comprises the following constructs: (1) Approach Coping including distal advice; close support; helplessness; retaliation; and technical coping; and (2) Avoidance Coping including assertiveness; and active ignoring. The regression analysis using multinomial logistic regression results identified only two variables that were significantly associated with the coping action, namely Distal Advice (t=4.857, p<0.05); and Technical Coping (t=4.519, p<0.05). This research evidenced that almost all the students are aware of the cyberbullying phenomenon caused by technological usage and applied the preventive approach of distal advice and technical coping. Even though they possess the knowledge of coping actions, there is still a percentage of those who do not. There is a need for guidelines of practices that universities must provide for students if they are being cyberbullied. Therefore, this study proposed the coping strategy of cyberbullying guidelines for university students.