Under Construction @ Keele 2017 Under Construction @ Keele Vol. III (3) | Page 25

Constantinos Kokkinos et al. found cyberbullying behaviours rare amongst their
sample. 20 Only within the past ten years or so has there been an increased interest
in the aggressive and victimising behaviours of students and on any associated
effects on their well-being. Therefore, the small quantity of evidence that shows
bullying is rare in HE (see Bauman & Newman and Kokkinos et al.) may be
indicative of a lack of interest in the subject, and thus, little consistent, empirical
research exists.
The Problem of Definitions
One problem is that the research in this area may be deficient due to definitional and
measurement issues. It is difficult to measure a concept through surveys, if the
concept is defined differently by different populations. Some studies adopt the
definition used with school children, but others leave the interpretation up to the
student by asking them what is understood by the term ‘bullying’. In one survey,
where no definition was given at the beginning, undergraduates indicated that
bullying was not a problem at university, although 49% (63) of them met the criteria
for having been bullied there (according to the traditional definition). 21 Similarly, with
cyberbullying, there is also discordance as to what classifies as bullying. In one
survey of US undergraduates, 30% (39) indicated they had experienced undesirable
digital communication, but they did not class it as cyberbullying. 22
Urie Bronfenbrenner’s widely used ecological model theorises that each new
generation develops in a unique ‘macrosystem’, therefore the current generation of
students is embedded in a vastly different culture from those who are studying
them. 23,24 This could account for a mismatch in definitions, perceptions, and
Constantinos M. Kokkinos, Nafsika Antoniadou and Angelos Markos, “Cyber-Bullying: An
Investigation of the Psyc hological Profile of University Student Participants,” Journal of Applied
Developmental Psychology 35 (3) (2014): 204-214.
21
Adena Young-Jones et al., “Bullying Affects More Than Feelings: The Long-Term Implications of
Victimization on Academic Motivation in Higher Education,” Social Psychology of Education 18 (1)
(2015): 185-200.
22
Wensley and Campbell, “Heterosexual and Non-Heterosexual Young University Students'
Involvement.”
23
Urie Bronfenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
24
Robert Kali and John Cavanaugh, Human Development: A Life-Span View. [5th Edition] (Belmont:
Wadsworth, 2010).
20