1

Cyberbullying

Solutions to cyberbullying among students of 63 Advanced Education

Program, National Economics University.
by
Nguyen Phuong Anh, Nguyen Le Bach, Vu Thi Linh Chi
Instructor: Master Do Kieu Lan

Advanced Education Program

National Economics University
January 2022
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Cyberbullying

Author: Nguyen Phuong Anh, Nguyen Le Bach, Vu Thi Linh Chi

Title: Solutions to cyberbullying among students of 63 Advanced Education
Program, National Economics University.
Program: Advanced Education Program
Research Adviser: Master Do Kieu Lan
Month/Year: January 2022
Number of pages: ____
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Cyberbullying

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................5
Chapter I: Introduction............................................................................................6
Chapter II: Literature Review.................................................................................9
Chapter III: Methodology......................................................................................14
Chapter IV: Findings and discussion....................................................................16
Chapter V: Conclusion..........................................................................................29
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Cyberbullying

Table of Figures

FIGURE 1: THE POPULARITY OF CYBERBULLYING AMONG 63 AEP

STUDENTS.............................................................................................................16
FIGURE 2: PROPORTION OF CYBERBULLYING VICTIMS IN 63 AEP...........17
FIGURE 3: PERCENTAGE OF VICTIMS ACCORDING TO TIME USING
SOCIAL MEDIA......................................................................................................19
FIGURE 4: PERSPECTIVE OF 63 AEP STUDENTS ABOUT THE PURPOSES
OF THE CYBERBULLY..........................................................................................20
FIGURE 5: PERSPECTIVE OF 63 NEU AEP STUDENTS ABOUT FORMS OF
CYBERBULLYING..................................................................................................21
FIGURE 6: EVALUATE THE ROLE OF FOUR GROUPS IN PROTECTING
CHILDREN FROM CYBERBULLYING.................................................................24
FIGURE 7: PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THE SUBJECTS WHO CAN HELP THE
VICTIMS.................................................................................................................26
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Cyberbullying

List of Abbreviation

NEU National Economics University

AEP Advanced Education Program

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Cyberbullying

ABSTRACT

Cyberbullying has been popping up in schools recently as a new form of

bullying. This happened along with the development of social networks.
Cyberbullying is often less well known than other forms of bullying because
victims rarely speak up and share stories. This means that the media rarely
publishes cyberbullying information and becomes less accessible to Internet users.
The impact of cyberbullying, however, is not small. Although Vietnam has not yet
imposed any laws, a number of countries in Asia in general and the world, in
particular, have enacted laws to prevent cyber-violence. This study focuses on
freshman groups at university, specifically at the age of 18, to find out the most
basic characteristics of cyberbullying in Vietnam and propose solutions to help
prevent and get rid of cyberbullying. Surveys and interviews are used to conduct
the research by quantitative research method. Results will mainly focus on the
most basic characteristics of cyberbullying and collect data from the perspective of
more than two hundred survey respondents.
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Cyberbullying

Chapter I: Introduction
1. Background of the research

Currently, cyberbullying is undeniably one of the most critical social

phenomena in society. Bullying is essentially unwanted, aggressive harassment
between individuals that can occur in several forms. The topic of bullying has been
an ongoing problem across the globe for years that have brought about unforeseen
consequences to people of all ages. 

In general, cyberbullying has been thought that the signs of bullying cease to
exist after high school or middle; while it is partly true, there is no doubt that
bullying is still a rampant issue, thus making college students common victims of
bullying.

Cyberbullying may not be a new topic in National Economics University,

because students living in a new era can easily access the internet and risk
becoming prey for cyberbullying because they don't have too much life experience.
For that reason, this research is created to provide readers with objective
information about cyberbullying to comprehend what cyberbullying is and how it
affects college students.

2. Rationale 

The research was conducted because of three following reasons. First of all,
bullying has become a rising concern for college students around the world. The
need to study school bullying has escalated further in recent years, and the rise of
cyberculture led to bullying cases on countless occasions in various methods.
Secondly, being a victim of bullying can lead to dreadful consequences, including
physical and mental harm. Finally, throughout this research, the primary
motivation would be to analyze and evaluate this phenomenon in a closer view
with the hope of resolving the situation.

3. Purposes of the research

This research is based on three fundamental purposes. The first purpose is to

identify the various forms of cyberbullying in recent years and their negative
impacts on students 63 Advanced Education Program, National Economic
University. Secondly, this research will provide statistics about the proportion of
victims suffering from cyberbullying. Lastly, solutions to cyberbullying will be
proposed to help students avoid and overcome cyberbullying.
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Cyberbullying

4. Research questions

For the purpose of this study, the following questions are raised:

1. What forms of cyberbullying do 63 Advanced Education Program students

often have to suffer from?
2. What suggestions for 63 Advanced Education Program students to avoid and
overcome cyberbullying?   

5. Scope of the research

The target participants in this research are about 50% of students of the 63
Advanced Education Program, around 220 students. This project will be conducted
within 15 weeks, from October 2021 to January 2022.

6. Research method

Often we tend to use data collected by renowned institutes and organizations

around the world, which can be found on the Internet. Moreover, since data from
different sources needed to be compared to each other to gauge the relative trend as
precisely as possible, an excel table can benefit most situations. Besides, some
surveys to collect data from NEU students will be taken.

The survey will be conducted within student intake 63 of the Advanced

Education Program of National Economics University in an online survey due to
the epidemic situation. It will be designed as a multiple-choice question list to help
the interviewees to answer their attitudes, viewpoint, and behavior. Their
experiences of cyberbullying or related incidents will also be listed for this study.

7. Structure of the research

This research paper will be included in 5 chapters. The first chapter is the
introduction which consists of 7 parts. The first part is the Background of the
research. This section will provide background information about the research
paper. Part 2 is the rationale, which shows the reasons for doing the research,
followed by the Purposes of the research and research questions. These two
sections will outline the study’s goals and the questions behind them. Part 5 is the
Scope of the research, and this part will present information about survey
respondents and the time of the study. Finally, Research methods and Structure of
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Cyberbullying

the study. Chapter II is a literature review. Although this chapter does not have a
specific structure, it will achieve some basic requirements such as providing an
overview of critical terms, analyzing/evaluating the other research related to the
topic, or highlighting the significance of the study. Chapter III is the Research
methodology. This section will include specific information such as Research
participants, Research instruments, and Research procedure. Chapter IV is
Findings and discussions. This chapter consists of the results of the research paper
and the information that has been collected after conducting the research. This
information is analyzed and discussed by the group participants in the group. The
final chapter is the Conclusion. This must include information about
Acknowledgment, References, and Appendix.
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Cyberbullying

Chapter II: Literature Review

1. Overview of Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is bullying carried out through electronic devices such as phones,

tablets, computers or laptops. Attackers can do this bullying by texting via SMS or
messaging apps, posting and sharing negative information aimed at victims. Social
networks are often chosen as the main tool for "virtual attacks" because of the
rapid spread of information on these digital platforms.

This kind of bullying is difficult to observe because cyberbullying takes place

on a phone, computer or tablet, so it is almost undetectable. Determination is also
one of the characteristics that recognize it whether it's happening online or through
a smartphone. Since most youngsters have consistent access to computers,
cyberbullying can happen at any time of day, be it at home or within the
community.

Furthermore, cyberbullying can be carried out while remaining anonymous

leaving the victim to suffer severe harm while not knowing who the other person
is, nor is the bully responsible. Last but not least, what individuals put on the
Internet sometimes cannot be changed. Once data has been put on the internet, it
may not be possible to completely delete it.

2. Overview of 63 AEP students

Students of the Advanced Education Program in National Economics

University intake 63 are new students of the institute, aged 18 - 19, living in a
rapidly developing technology era. They are exposed to the Internet from an early
age, use the Internet a lot in work, study as well as in life. Therefore, if they lack
knowledge or skills, they are very likely to become victims of cyberbullying.

3. Summaries of related study. 

3.1 Introduction

Cyberbullying has become a rising concern for both schools and global
society in the Internet era. Multiple studies have been conducted worldwide and
reported that cyberbullying has negative impacts on mental health and leads to
many other consequences. Cyberbullying has many characteristics, and its
definition depends on different countries. Also, the victims of cyberbullying vary
from children to adults, and they depend on each nation. Some examples include
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Cyberbullying

the difference in the age of cyber-victims, definitions, laws, etc (Cong, Ngoc, Bahr,
Luot, & Dat, 2018) (Ruiz, 2019). The present paper investigates the definition,
characteristics, and solutions of cyberbullying. It is hypothesized that although
each nation has different forms of cyberbullying, they all have some characteristics
in common. The following five literature reviews attempt to demonstrate and
support this hypothesis.  

 3.2. Body

In a research article by Cong et al. (2018), many researchers have defined

cyberbullying in different ways. Still, all the definitions have a similarity: They all
originated in the definition of traditional bullying. In general, in the word
“cyberbullying,” The term "cyber" refers to anything that has to do with computers
or the Internet. (Cong, et al., 2018). This study compared the definitions from
many researchers worldwide and showed no definition based on the Vietnamese
perspective in Vietnamese Culture. Therefore, the goal of this study was to
formally define cyberbullying derived from the viewpoint of Vietnamese people
and appropriate with Vietnamese culture. One limitation to this study is that this
research uses qualitative research, which is limited in the number of people who
participated (about five students and five parents). Therefore, the result of this
research is not objective enough. 
 
The result in this study supported the hypothesis that there are seven typical
characteristics of cyberbullying in Vietnam and many other countries in Asia. The
first one is that it transmits negative, false, hateful, secret, and personal information
through electronic devices and applications indirectly. Second, cyberbullying
always intends to hurt the victim(s). Third, it is a repetition action and power
imbalance. Fourth, a victim(s) can be attacked anonymously or be faked identity
by the perpetrators,and these things may occur at any time of the day or night.
Moreover, the perpetrator can be an individual or group. (Cong, et al., 2018) The
result also indicated that these characteristics could be changed from culture to
culture. The perspectives of cyberbullying behavior are also different among the
groups of investigated subjects. Typically, they are psycho-educational experts;
Psychologists, counselors; teachers; parents; and students. Each group shows their
knowledge and points of view about cyberbullying behavior. 
 
All of these results combined confirm the hypothesis that there are various
aspects of cyberbullying, which can be seen from many personal opinions. This
variation contributes to creating an overall knowledge about cyberbullying in
Vietnam. One limitation is that adults’ perspectives are quite different from the
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Cyberbullying

ones of students, and the knowledge of experts is often quite academic and
theoretical, which are not practical for students. 
 
Next, the topic of attachment concerns the comparison between the existing
cyberbullying laws among selected ASEAN countries. In the article by (Ruiz,
2019) two questions were addressed. First, does cyberbullying have similarities in
the selected ASEAN countries? Second, what are the measures that might fit other
ASEAN countries’ needs. The focus of the study is to investigate the specific
characteristics of cyberbullying in six ASEAN countries then compare them to
suggest the most appropriate measures for each country. Moreover, this research
focuses on the law enacted to prevent cyberbullying in the countries investigated.
However, even though there is no explicit cyberbullying legislation that applies to
kids in this country, the Ministry of Education and Training has launched a
national education program called “ Building Friendly Schools and Active
Students” (Ruiz, 2019)
 
The results indicate that violence at school (including cyberbullying)
increases every year in ASEAN countries in general and in Vietnam in specific.
Although not all of the ASEAN nations examined have enacted a cyberbullying
law that applies to kids, some have implemented anti-bullying initiatives through
government and school efforts. However, no research was discovered that
measured efficacy or indicated school accountability for any monitoring. One
limitation of this study is that this study was only able to obtain a tiny amount of
information. As a result, this work strongly encourages future researchers to
undertake similar studies on cyberbullying among students in ASEAN nations to
gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and identify further potential
solutions that would aid the countries affected.
                  
Next, in the study by (Ben-Joseph, 2018), cyberbullying is considered
manipulating technology to inflict negative emotions onto another. It can occur in
online threats and mean aggressive or rude texts, tweets, posts, or messages to
harass or hurt someone. It can also include photos, messages, or pages that don't
get taken down, even after being asked to do so. Setting it apart from traditional
bullying, cyberbullying isn’t easily traceable since it is committed on the internet
where everyone can be anonymous, making it easier to carry out because the
bullying doesn’t happen face to face. Additionally, electronic content can be
challenging to remove and functionally permanent, so victims may repeatedly
experience one bullying incident. It can be agonizing for the victims whenever they
access their social devices and being reminded about the harassment, as well as not
being able to see how many people have seen the harassing  (Ben-Joseph, 2018)
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Cyberbullying

 
According to a UNICEF survey, one-fifth of young Vietnamese are bullied
online, yet most do not know where to seek professional help. According to the
Violence Against Children study in 2019, 70% of young Vietnamese respondents
were unaware of any helpline or service for cyberbullying. This includes 1,788
people in Vietnam, where 21% admitted to being victims of internet bullying (Sen,
2019). Cyberbullying is on the rise to becoming a serious problem worldwide, with
students from the age group of 10 - 18 years old being its most common victims.
(Ben-Joseph, 2018) published a review, stating that the prevalence of
cyberbullying in the world ranges from 6.5% to 35.4%. Additionally, several
studies in recent years showed that the rate of bullying across various regions in
Vietnam ranges from 16.7% to 35.7%.
 
The victims of online bullying can vary depending on perpetrators or
cultures, most notably, people who are seen as different ( have an unconventional
body shape, have a disability ), people who seem unable to defend themselves, …
Age acts as the main potential factor in regards to victimization. This could be due
to the spontaneous nature of the younger generations and their increasing usage of
SNS (Social Networking Service), resulting in the highest rate of victimization
among adolescents. The rate of cyberbullying can also differ with educational
level. Particular research has shown an upsurge in cyberbullying rate with parents
who came from lower academic backgrounds as opposed to higher ones (Kalliope
Athanasiou, Richardson, Greydanus, Tsolia, & Tsitsika, 2018). Moreover, family
relationships or family structure also have an impact on adolescents undergoing
victimization since they have a vital role in youth development. The lack of
parental bonding and communication can also lead to the victims’ inability to
speak openly about their experience of being bullied.

 3.3. Conclusion. 

Taken together, there are various forms of cyberbullying, and it is different

in each culture. (Ben-Joseph, 2018) (Cong, Ngoc, Bahr, Luot, & Dat, 2018)
(Kalliope, et al.,2018)  (Ruiz, 2019) (Sen, 2019). The results also indicate that
cyberbullying has greatly affected young people in general and students in
particular. There are many students, regardless of classification conditions, who are
victims of this problem. It causes adverse effects on their development, causing
behavioral and cognitive errors. To solve this problem, research shows that home
and school play a vital role in the solutions that can be offered.
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Cyberbullying

4. Solutions

According to some authors worldwide in general and in Asia in specific,

there are various types of cyberbullying in many cultures. Therefore, the solutions
to them are also different. In general, governments and schools should enact some
laws to prevent cyberbullying as many countries in Asia such as Thailand or
Indonesia. Moreover, individuals suffering from cyberbullying should not panic.
Asking for advice is the first and foremost solution. Parents and schools should
cooperate to help avoid cyberbullying problems. Besides parents and friends,
students could also meet their teachers or mentors to ask for help.  
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Cyberbullying

Chapter III: Methodology

1. Research participants

This research analysis is based on surveys of students that were conducted in a

probability-based panel of the number of Advanced Education Program students.
Randomly selected students are sampled with a known, and then contacted by mail
and telephone for interviewing.

This particular survey featured interviews with 227 students (84 male and 126
female) who belong to the study program. They were all students of Advanced
Education Program intake 63 and were between the ages of 18 and 19 years old.
Surveys and interviews were conducted online and by telephone in December
2021.

In particular, there was a directed interview with a female student who was a
victim of online violence. She had a problem about a year ago, went through a
period of depression before seeking professional help.

2. Research instruments

In this research, qualitative research was applied to ensure credibility which

came in the form of surveys and interviews. Surveys are crucial to the research as
they can accumulate information from a large number of respondents as well as
provide a wide range of information regarding the topic, which enables extensive
flexibility in data analysis. There are 3 parts to the survey, including the
introduction, the general information and the research questions. Firstly, the
introduction informs the respondent about the purpose and the content of the
survey. Second is the general information segment , where the respondents are
asked to fill in their basic personal information in order to narrow down the field of
research and identify the main target groups. Lastly, the research questions area
contains questions related to various aspects of the topic, providing the prime
information for the research. Interviews are also used in the research for more
reliable and in-depth information. By interviewing the victims of bullying, the
research can have a better objective view on the topic. Furthermore, interviews can
also provide necessary primary information to ensure the credibility of the
research.
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Cyberbullying

3. Research procedure

This research will follow four steps. First, Google form is used as a tool to
create a survey that consists of 14 questions. Next, a survey will be conducted by
uploading the form to some 63 AEP student groups on social media in order that
there will be more students who can access the form. The aim of the participants is
50% students of 63 AEP NEU, which is around 220 students. Next, it is necessary
to collect the personal information of victims with a view to taking online
interviews. The interview is essential because the subjective view of victims may
help the study become more practical. Finally, charts are used to synthesize data
and provide information for the next chapter. After having done this step, the next
chapter - findings and discussion will use the data and information from the
previous part.
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Cyberbullying

Chapter IV: Findings and discussion

This chapter presents the results of the whole information and data analysis
in the previous chapters and discussions of the results. There will be four sections
in this chapter. The first section presents the popularity of cyberbullying among 63
AEP, NEU students. The second section presents two basic factors that have
impacts on cyberbullying. Then, the next section shows the forms of cyberbullying
which relate to 63 AEP students. And the last section presents the solutions
proposed by 63 AEP students from the questionnaire and interview. The last
section presents a discussion of the results found from this study. This survey was
conducted by 227 students of 63 AEP, NEU, in which the number of students
participating was divided into 3 gender groups. This study will only focus on the
influence of male and female genders on cyberbullying.

The table below presents three groups of students joining the study in terms
of gender: 

Male 84
Female 126
Others 17
Total 227

1. The popularity of cyberbullying among 63 AEP NEU students. 

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Cyberbullying

Figure 1: THE POPULARITY OF CYBERBULLYING AMONG 63 AEP STUDENTS

A. The proportion of people who have heard about cyberbullying at least once.
B. The proportion of people who know at least one victim of cyberbullying.
C. The proportion of victims suffering from cyberbullying. 

The bar chart above illustrates the popularity of cyberbullying. 64.8% of

students have heard about cyberbullying through mass media. 25.1% of students
said that they know at least 1 victim of cyberbullying. This proves that
cyberbullying is a common view to young people, especially students. In addition,
only 10.1% of students have been victims of cyberbullying. Therefore, it can be
said that cyberbullying has appeared in schools but with a low and not alarming
number. More specifically, when comparing cyberbullying with other forms of
bullying, cyberbullying is still not a cause for concern.

2. Factors that have influences on cyberbullying.

2.1. Gender

Out of 227 students who joined in the survey, the number of students who
are victims of cyberbullying is described in the table below:
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Cyberbullying

Male 6/84
Female 16/126
Others 1/17
Total 23/227

According to the statistic from the table, the percentage of students who
suffered from cyberbullying in terms of gender are illustrated in the chart below: 

Figure 2: PROPORTION OF CYBERBULLYING VICTIMS IN 63 AEP

This study will focus mainly on the influence of male and female genders on
cyberbullying.
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Cyberbullying

In general, around 10% of AEP students have been victims of cyberbullying.

This is not a very large number, however, it is still on an uptrend. Therefore, there
should be some measures to thoroughly solve cyberbullying and related problems.
According to this bar chart, females are the most vulnerable subjects of
cyberbullying with 12.69% of them reported to have been a victim. This symptom
can be explained by several reasons. First and foremost, females often do not have
a stable mindset when it comes to social media communication, so they are
susceptible to becoming subjects of cyberbullying. Next, females tend to spend
more time on social media than males. That is why the number of female victims is
5.5% higher than that of male victims.

2.2. Time using social media.  

Among 227 students who took the survey, with results coming back, the number of
students using social networks was divided into four-time groups as follows:

NUMBER OF STUDENTS USING SOCIAL MEDIA ACCORDING TO

FOUR GROUP OF TIME

Time using Internet Number of students

Under 1 hour/day 19
1 - 3 hours/day 56
3 - 5 hours/day 124
Over 5 hours/day 28

The table above illustrates the trend of time spent on social media by 63
NEU AEP students. In general, students often use social networks at most 3-5
hours a day. This is a relatively high number. From the chart above, we have the
following graph describing the effect of time spent on social media corresponding
with the percentage of cyberbullying victims:
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Cyberbullying

Figure 3: PERCENTAGE OF VICTIMS ACCORDING TO TIME USING SOCIAL MEDIA

The bar chart above illustrates the percentage of cyberbully victims

according to four groups of time using social media. It is clear that students who
use social media under 1 hour per day are rarely the victims of cyberbullying. By
contrast, students who spend more than 5 hours per day tend to become the victims
more often (about 14%)            

The data from the chart above shows that the time spent on social media has
a direct influence on the pervasiveness of cyberbullying. The more time spent on
social media, the higher the rate of cyberbullying becomes. Therefore, students
need to reconsider the use of social networking platforms to avoid the risk of
cyberbullying.

2.3. Individual

Besides the above characteristics, some important factors should be

considered regarding cyberbullying. According to the results, the table below
describes the participants' views on the reasons why a person actively commits to
cyberbullying. Most of the options are pre-configured when participants fill out the
questionnaire. Therefore, the chart will describe the percentage of participants who
choose the answer. In addition, participants can still express their views in the
“other” box.

 
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Cyberbullying

Figure 4: PERSPECTIVE OF 63 AEP STUDENTS ABOUT THE PURPOSES OF THE

CYBERBULLY

The table above describes the percentage of participants choosing options that are
believed to be the cause of cyberbullying. The options above mostly come from the
personal factors of the cyber bully. More specifically, up to 86.5% of students
believe that “enjoy putting others down” is a factor leading to cyberbullying. Next,
more than 60% of students chose answers such as “have conflicts with others:”,
“have high self-esteem” or “do it for fun”. This raises questions about: Is the use of
social media today inciting the negative aspects of people? Or is virtual space too
easy for people to bring up another person as a “do it for fun?” object. Back to the
previous part, time using the Internet has a direct influence on the percentage of
victims. Similarly, this number also shows the toxic aspects of social media. If
there is conflict with others, sometimes, cyberbullying is understandable.
Conversely, factors such as: “enjoy putting others down” or “do it for fun” are
inadmissible. Alarming is the fact that these factors are slowly becoming
commonplace and gradually becoming the cause of a number of conflicts online
and cyberbullying is one of them. To better understand cyberbullying from the
above factors, this study will present more in section 4 in this chapter.

3. Forms of cyberbullying among 63 AEP NEU

3.1. Results from the questionnaire.

According to the views of the students who participated in the survey, the
manifestations of cyberbullying appear in many forms. The specific results will be
illustrated through the chart below:
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Cyberbullying

Figure 5: PERSPECTIVE OF 63 NEU AEP STUDENTS ABOUT FORMS OF

CYBERBULLYING

The chart above shows the percentage of students choosing the form that is
considered a sign of cyberbullying. It can be seen that the options provided by the
questionnaire are relatively consistent with the views of the current 63 AEP NEU
students. From the data of the graph, it can be seen that the views on the form of
cyberbullying of 63 AEP NEU students share a similar trend. This perspective
focuses mainly on the selected responses given by the research team regarding the
questionnaire for the study. Mainly, the expression of cyberbullying focuses on 7
main forms, in which 4 forms are chosen by more than 80% of students as signs of
cyberbullying.

The percentage of participants said that forms such as posting negative

images, revealing embarrassing information, threatening or creating fake accounts
are the most common forms of cyberbullying, which are very crowded, accounting
for more than 80%. In which, up to 86.5% of students said that they " Reveal
secrets or embarrassing information about others." It is a form of cyberbullying. By
contrast, only 27.4% of students consider spam emails to be one of the forms of
cyberbullying. However, it still can be said that this is still one of the risks that are
considered cyberbullying. In addition, other forms are also mentioned, information
about these forms will be described in more detail in the next section: Results from
the interview
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Cyberbullying

3.2. Results from the interview. 

Because of the limitations of the study, results were obtained based on only
3 interviews. This affects the objectivity of the results. Results can only be viewed
from one side and cannot cover all the factors as stated in the previous chapter.
However, the information from these three interviews may contribute to the
perception of forms of cyberbullying, especially the views and direct advice of
victims of cyberbullying.

3.2.1. Information about the interview

All three interviews were conducted via the Zoom platform. The interview
was conducted after the interviewees had filled out the survey on the questionnaire
form. After leaving an email contact, the interview took place in early December.

All three interviewees are subject to research participants. The common

feature of all three interviewees is that they all told their own stories and luckily,
they all made it through. The interviewee freely shared the story but asked to
change the name to avoid infringing on personal information. Details of the
interviews are summarized in the table below:

Interviewee  Forms of cyberbullying Consequences: Solution

Nguyen Receive disrespect Become depressed to Hide her post
Thanh ha comments on her Solve the problem
success by herself
Ta Thu Trang Receive body shaming Become panic Ask for advices
comments Have an inferiority from family and
complex. friends
Be threatened
 Reduce time
Receive spam email using social media

Pham Minh Receive abusive Become frightened Seek advice from

Huy comments parents 

3.2.2. Conclusion from the interview

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Cyberbullying

The results from the interview showed that all three victims had at least one
thing in common: Received negative comments from anonymous accounts. This all
has an impact on the psychology of the victim. Most lead to negative and lasting
emotions, if the problem doesn't stop. Cyberbullying takes place in many different
forms, but in general, negative comments are considered to be the most influential
and most popular form.

4. Solution to cyberbullying proposed by 63 AEP, NEU students

Overall, there are many workarounds to cyberbullying. Specifically, this

study will develop in two directions, how to prevent cyberbullying and how to deal
with cyberbullying.

4.1. How to avoid being cyberbullied.

4.1.1. Individual responsibilities

As for prevention, sections 2 and 3 need to be revisited. In section 2, the

factors affecting cyberbullying have been analyzed. In which, there are 2 main
factors: gender and time using the Internet.

Gender factor is an objective factor, which means that regardless of gender,

it is still necessary to be vigilant to avoid cyberbullying. However, we can say that
the percentage of females who are subject to cyberbullying is higher than that of
males. Therefore, women need to be more cautious in the social network
environment.

In terms of the time using the Internet factor, this is one of the main factors
affecting the percentage of cyberbullying victims. The more time spent on social
media, the higher the risk of being bullied. Therefore, students should consider
reducing unnecessary time on social media to avoid cyberbullying risks. Reducing
time using social networks also contributes to creating more time for students to
participate in other more rewarding activities. Thereby avoiding toxic relationships
on social media and negative thoughts as well as related problems.

4.1.2. Social responsibilities

As well as individual responsibilities, social responsibilities also contribute

to the prevention of cyberbullying. To be more precise, these responsibilities
belong to four groups.
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Cyberbullying

The data below is compiled from the assessment of the students participating
in the survey. This table will provide additional information on the responsibilities
of target groups towards cyberbullying among students.

Figure 6: EVALUATE THE ROLE OF FOUR GROUPS IN PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM

CYBERBULLYING
VU: Very Unimportant U: Unimportant N: Neutral

I: Important VI: Very Important

The data from the table above shows that families, especially parents, have the
most responsibility/considered "very important" in protecting children from
cyberbullying. Additionally, School also plays the second-highest role in
supporting children. In specific, this study focuses on the methods that schools and
families can do to prevent cyberbullying. 

 Schools’ responsibilities

There are several methods proposed by participants that schools can do to

prevent cyberbullying. This graph below presents the perspective about some
popular methods that schools can do:

- Educate about the negative effects of bullying: 83.8% of participants chose

this option. So it can be said that this is one of the most common and reliable
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Cyberbullying

solutions today. This is completely understandable because the victim of

cyberbullying that this survey targets is 63 AEP NEU students. Therefore,
educating about the negative impacts of bullying is the most appropriate
method, especially when students are still at levels such as middle school
and high school. The survey also shows that 81.1% of students agree with
the idea. idea: Cyberbullying should be taught in schools as an elective
subject

- Make strict rules against bullying: 62.2% of participants of the survey chose
this option. This is the second-highest option schools can take to prevent
cyberbullying. Vietnam has not yet enacted any laws of cyberbullying. If
compared with some countries in Southeast Asia, chapter II has mentioned
this distinction. Although no law has been enacted yet, Vietnamese schools
had had solutions to prevent any form of bullying, including cyberbullying
by following the model “Friendly Schools, Active Students”

- Supervise the school better: 40.5% of participants of the survey chose this
option. Although this is the least popular option, 40.5% is still a significant
number. Supervise the school better not only to prevent but also to help
teachers and students better know the current situation of the school, grasp
the prevention and handling methods when there are students in the school
who are victims of cyberbullying.

 Family responsibilities

Family plays a very important role in preventing cyberbullying. Parents and

siblings in the family have the responsibility to listen to and understand children's
stories. At the same time, parents should also pay attention to their children's time
using social media. Because the amount of time you spend on social media every
day has a direct impact on the victimization rate of cyberbullying. If children spend
too much time on social media or are using social media in an unhealthy way,
parents should spend more time managing and connecting with their children.

4.2. How to deal with cyberbullying?

4.2.1. Individual

According to the research results of the survey, 100% of the participating

students chose the option “Ask for help” when asked the question: “What should
the victims do when they are cyberbullied?”. This is a popular and extremely
positive view of everyone. Withstanding alone when being cyberbullied, will only
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Cyberbullying

lead to many negative consequences resulting from it. Victims will sometimes
become confused and unable to find a solution and as the situation becomes more
serious, some specific consequences will appear such as: Have psychological
problems, inferiority complex, or trigger violence.

For the “Ask for help” option, the perspective of the subject that can help the
victim is presented according to the following data:

Figure 7: PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THE SUBJECTS WHO CAN HELP THE VICTIMS

The chart above shows the views of 63 AEP, NEU students about who
victims can turn to when being cyberbullied. The data shows that specific subjects
such as parents, teachers, real-life friends, or family members are reliable targets
for cyberbullying victims. Therefore, when the victim is going through
cyberbullying, the best solution is to ask for advice from the following: parents
(83.8%), teachers/mentors (70.3%), siblings (75.7%), real-life friends (81.1%), and
psychological doctors (73.0%). in which, the most influential groups are family
members and school. On the contrary, looking to a psychological doctor for advice
is not very common for Vietnamese students today.

To sum up, seeking advice from the group “parents” and “school” is found
to be most effective for cyberbullied victims.

4.2.2. Family and school. 

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Cyberbullying

Upon discovering that students are victims of cyberbullying, parents and

siblings should listen to their children's stories and share. Do not blame or be
indifferent. Adults should advise children so that children can know how to deal
with and prevent the negative consequences that occur when cyberbullying
happens for a long time. If the situation is serious, intervention is needed to help
the victim get out of cyberbullying as quickly as possible.

Schools also have a great responsibility to help students deal with situations
where students are victims of cyberbullying. Schools need to listen to students'
stories. From the chart above, teachers/mentors are considered to be reliable for
students when facing related problems. Universities should also consider opening
counseling rooms for students to provide psychological counseling when needed.
When students realize they are being cyberbullied, they can go to these counseling
rooms to meet with psychological counselors or even academic counselors. 
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Cyberbullying

Chapter V: Conclusion 
1. The importance of preventing cyberbullying among 63 AEP, NEU
students

College students, especially freshmen, are often at high risk of becoming

victims of cyberbullying. The cause stems from the lack of understanding and
knowledge about cyberbullying. Freshmen are often not educated in the basics and
dangers of cyberbullying. In addition, cyberbullying is quite new to the
Vietnamese social network environment in recent years. Students also spend a lot
of time on social networks. This coupled with ignorance leads to many negative
effects, including cyberbullying. Students may access malicious websites, cause
personal information leaks, maybe smeared with images, spam emails, or even be
threatened with blackmail.

From the above problem, victims of cyberbullying will be affected

psychologically in different degrees. At a certain level, the victim will experience
psychological problems such as fear, depression, low self-esteem,... If the level is
more severe, the victim will become agitated, violent, even acts of anger,
revenge,... From that, it can be said that cyberbullying should not be taken lightly.
The short-term impact may be just the psychology of the individual, but in the long
run, cyberbullying can become an agent of crime, increasing the crime rate of the
country on many fronts.

Cyberbullying often has severe consequences, especially for teenagers. It can

lead to anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, self-harm, and even suicide, victims
often lack self-confidence and severely damage self-esteem, have feelings of fear,
sadness, anger more after being bullied. Not to mention, once appearing online,
such content often stays for a long time and is very difficult to get rid of. As such,
the pain caused by cyberbullying is enormous and unpredictable.

Despite this danger, some statistics show that such behaviors are still
increasing: more than half of teenagers have been bullied online at least once;
More than 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyberbullying; more than 25% of
youth have experienced or are experiencing repeated bullying via mobile devices
or the Internet; More than half of teenagers who are bullied online do not tell their
parents when they are being bullied.
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Cyberbullying

2. Conclusion about the results of the study.

This study has solved two basic problems raised in chapter I. Specifically,
the research results have shown that forms of cyberbullying exist among 63 AEP
NEU students. There are many different forms of cyberbullying and are aggregated
into several typical forms. In particular, the negative comment is the most common
form today, not only because of the frequency of occurrence but also because of
the negative impact on the victim's psychology. In addition, this form is also
popular because it is easy to implement. Cyberbullies can completely create
multiple anonymous accounts at the same time, form in groups, and attack others
on social networks with negative comments. As a result, the victim will find it
difficult to find the root of the problem, find the cause, and easily become lost in
finding a solution.

To prevent and confront cyberbullying, individuals and society both have a

responsibility. Individuals need to have the knowledge to prevent cyberbullying
and equip themselves with basic skills to deal with when they become a victim of
cyberbullying. In addition, it is necessary to have a sense of propaganda, to
actively help out the victims. Stay away from participating in activities or groups
to cyberbully others. Try to listen, understand the stories of friends around when
they are cyberbullied.  

Besides, family and society also play an important role in helping students
avoid cyberbullying. Families should have the responsibility to educate and care
for their children. They should be listening, understanding, sharing, and be ready to
give the right advice. Depending on the severity of the problem, the child may be
referred to another psychological clinic or counseling if necessary. In fact, in
recent years, the field of psychology is gradually developing in Vietnam, which
means that it is not too strange to seek advice from psychologists. As well as this,
schools should take more concrete and practical measures such as education,
propaganda, supervision, and even listening to stories and opinions from students.
At the same time, the point of view should be considered: Cyberbullying education
should be made an elective subject in life skills training subjects for students.

3. Limitations of the study.

This study also includes many limitations. First of all, there is a time limit for
studying. Because of the nature of this subject, it only allows students to research
and perform in one semester, so the results from this survey are not completely
accurate. Besides, the survey was only studied by 3 students. There are many parts
of the research such as data analysis, information synthesis, and interviews that are
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Cyberbullying

still incomplete. The information analyzed from the survey is not really objective
because the data is taken from a survey of the views of more than 220 students, not
a large-scale study. At the same time, cyberbullying is still a relatively new issue in
the current Vietnamese social network environment. Therefore, it is necessary to
expand the scope of research.

The interview method was carried out, however, there were only 3
interviewees. Therefore, the results from the interview are not objective results, but
only personal views and perspectives.

Because of the epidemic factor, online learning also affects the results of the
study. Not doing the survey in person is also a drawback. Therefore, there are still
many errors in the research and implementation of this survey.