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“Rates of cyber victimization and bullying among male Australian primary and high school
students”, by Tass Sakellariou , Annemaree Carroll and Stephen Houghton (2012) highlights the
rates of bullying through cyberspace by surveying three control groups , two high schools and
one primary school, selected through volunteer sampling. A close-ended questionnaire compiled
with questions from various validated sources were used, in which the students were given the
definition of bullying prior to taking the questionnaire. Approximately 1,530 students from three
different independent boys primary and secondary schools participated in the survey, in which
two of the sample groups were located in Brisbane and the third group located in Sydney.
An issue in the paper is the procedure they used to produce samples. The authors make it evident
that they are conducting a research that is representative of the average Australian male student,
as cited, their goal is to “provide a fair representation of the socio-economic milieu of Australian
cities” (Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 537). However, their sampling process is limited as they only
provide samples that are from Brisbane and Sydney. The sampling procedure conducted by the
researchers is called volunteer sampling, as they made contact with “the principals of three
randomly selected primary and six randomly selected high schools” in which only “three
expressed an interest in participating in the research” (Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 539). This form
of random sampling process does not provide sound representation of an entire demographic as it
lacks “population validity”, which “refers to the degree to which the sample of individuals in the
study is representative of the population from which it was selected” (Gall et al, 2015, p. 89).
While the author claims that these schools “cater to a wide diversity of cultural and socio
economic backgrounds” (Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 537), the authors fail to account for students
from low socioeconomic states, such as the northern territory, which has some of the lowest
socioeconomic residences in the country (Census of Population and Housing: Socio-Economic
The authors utilised a questionnaire style tool to survey 1530 students across three schools. The
questions that encompassed the survey were close-ended items. The 33 questions from the
survey were mostly taken from research revolving around concepts of bullying. This is a major
strength of this paper as the “content of the test’s items matches the content that it is designed to
measure” (Gall et al, 2012, p.94), thus resulting in strong content validity. This is seen in the
research as the sources used in the formation of the instrument are relevant to the subject matter
of the research, as they all revolve around concepts of “bullying” and “victimisation”
(Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 538). Furthermore, the remaining 12 questions that were developed
by the author were tested and “calculated using the Cronbach’s Alpha”, which scored an .86,
indicating “very good reliability” (Sakellariou et all, 2012, p. 538) as “measure is considered
reliable for most research and practical purposes if reliability coefficient is .80 or higher” (Gall et
al, 2015, p. 97). Thus the 12 questions provided were consistent and “pertaining to
results, as Cronbach (1951) states “reliability coefficient demonstrates whether the test designer
was correct in expecting a certain collection of items to yield interpretable statements about
While the authors imply that there is a statistical significance in regards to bullying via text
messages between junior secondary students, primary and secondary senior students (Sakellariou
et al, 2012 p. 540), the authors, when mentioning table 4, does not mention the statistical
significance between junior secondary school students at (11.3 percent), then primary (5.2
percent) and senior secondary school students (8.6) in regards to bullying via internet
(Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 541). Highlighting results that show statistical significance is
important as it indicates that there might be an underlying issue that caused that significance in
statistical date. As Dowling and Brown (2009) state “A statistically significant difference
Throughout the discussion. the authors highlighted strategies that educators could implement to
prevent various forms of cyberbullying. However, the author did not provide sufficient evidence
to support their claims. They state that “Encouraging a collaborative process might ensure that
the reporting of cyberbullying by children and adolescents is more open and that any approaches
to dealing with it are more consistently applied.“ (Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 545) The author
does not provide any evidence that an open “collaborative process” necessarily ensures that the
“reporting of cyberbullying” would be more open, and while the author does mention that
cyberbullying does go unreported, they fail to provide an explanation as to why students are not
reporting cyberbullying. The author could have mentioned that because students “fail to report
cyberbullying because they believe they can handle it on their own” (Juvonen and Gross, as cited
in Li et al, 2012, p. 129) and that they “do not report cyberbullying at school because they feel
school district personnel are not effective in dealing with the problem” (Agatston, Kowalski &
communication between teacher and student might be able to help alleviate these issues.
However, while the author failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their claim when
introducing strategies to counter cyberbullying, the authors did clarify the outcomes of the
research. For example, the author highlights the disparity between the high usage of “electronic
means” by students and the relatively low rates of cyberbullying as opposed to “traditional forms
of bullying” and that this is “due largely to the variety of definitions and measures used”
(Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 542 – 543). The authors also acknowledge, due to limited research
regarding the “prevalence of cyber victimization and the cyberbullying of others by electronic
means” (Sakellariou et al, 2012, p. 542) and that the research conducted “has its limitations,
primarily the inclusion only of male students” (Sakellariou et al, 2012, p.545) that further
research is required in order to effectively address issues of cyberbullying. As the authors state
“If effective strategies are to be developed to prevent increases in cyberbullying then more
evidence to support the claims being made. The author claims that the results produced from this
research is supposed to be indicative of the entire male student population in Australia, however
uses improper random sampling techniques that have poor population validity for the research to
be reliable. Also the author claims that improvements that can be made without providing both
more context about the situation and evidence to support his claims. However, despite these
weaknesses, there are strengths that are evident in this paper. The authors use of multiple
research to form the survey, and the high Cronbach’s alpha score of the test questions, provides a
survey that is both reliable and valid. The author also acknowledges the limitations of his
research and suggests that further research is required in the field of cyberbullying.
References
Australian Bureau of statistics (2008) census of Population and Housing: Socio-Economic
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2033.0.55.001Main+Features1200
6?OpenDocument
Li, Q., Cross, D., & Smith, P. K. (Eds.). (2011). Cyberbullying in the global playground:
Sakellariou, T., Carroll, A., & Houghton, S. (2012). Rates of cyber victimization and bullying
among male Australian primary and high school students. School Psychology
Ullman, J., Gall, Joyce P, Gall, Meredith D., Borg, Walter R, & University of Western Sydney.
(2015). Applying educational research : How to read, do, and use research to solve
problems of practice (Custom ed.).