PERCEPTION OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ABOUT CYBER BULLYING

This paper explores the phenomenon of cyber bullying amongst secondary school students. The main purpose was to understand the perception of students about cyber bullying. It exploited a sequential exploratory design, wherein the qualitative data was gathered by holding focus group discussion and conducting interviews. The quantitative data was collected through conducting a survey with 120 students. The results indicate that cyber bullying exists amongst students, although the prevalence rate, on the whole, varied because of different tools and sample sizes. A number of reasons for non-disclosure were identified, including fear of retribution, embarrassment and a belief that adults could not do anything about cyber bullying. Opportunities for future research in this area were outlined. This paper will go some way to close the gap on the paucity of cyber bullying research conducted within the Indian context.