BULLYING AND CYBERBULLYING

AMONG VICTIMS HIGH SCHOOL

STUDENTS(MALE AND FEMALE) IN
JEDDAH CITY-SAUDI ARABIA, 2023:
MIXED METHOD STUDY

Shahad Othman Algashi

Jumana Saud Shaker
Salem Alshehri
Muzun Dhafer AlSalman
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 RATIONAL
• There is no previous mixed method research had been conducted in bullying
and cyberbullying among high school students in KSA.
• The quality of findings will be strengthened when using mixed methods
because we need triangulated data
• obtain a more comprehensive view and more data about the problem than
either the quantitative or the qualitative perspective
• to create opportunities for the voices of victimized students to be heard

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 PROBLEM STATEMENT
In recent years, it has been observed that the phenomenon of bullying has spread among students, with the
presence of a lack of reporting of these cases while evidence is deficient in understanding and awareness about this
phenomenon.
Bullying is divided into four essential types: abuse-psychological (sometimes called emotional or interpersonal),
vocal, corporeal, and virtual (cyber)
In saudi Arabia there was a quantitative study among secondary school students demonstrated that ”The overall
rate of bullying was 64.7% , and the most prevalent type of bullying was verbal 41.7%, followed by physical
17.0%, and social 6.0%” “Males had more than two times greater probability of having been bullied than females
aOR = 2.522” “students in first-level grade classes had more than three times greater probability of being bullied
victims than those in the higher classes, i.e., second- and third-level grade classes[6]”
Internet addiction and social media usage are growing rapidly in Saudi Arabia, especially among young people.
Prevalence estimates increased from 4-6% in 2014-2015 to a whopping 30-60% in 2019 in less than five years.[1]
In 2022, over 98% of Saudis are an active internet users[2].
This greatly increases the risk of cyberbullying. A recent cross sectional study had been conducted in Al-Jouf
region showed that 30% out of 410 participants were involved in cyberbullying.
Neither qualitative nor mixed method designs had been conducted in Saudi Arabia about bullying or cyberbullying

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 Prevalence

The overall rate of bullying was 64.7% , The most prevalent type of bullying was verbal (41.7%, 95% CI 36.0-
47.5) followed by physical (17.0%, 95% CI 12.9-21.7), and social (6.0%, 95% CI 3.6-9.3). Males had more than
two times greater probability of having been bullied than females (aOR = 2.522, 95% CI 1.408-4.518). Similarly,
students in first-level grade classes had more than three times greater probability of being bullied victims than
those in the higher classes, i.e., second- and third-level grade classes[6]
Itnernet addiction and social media usage are growing rapidly in Saudi Arabia, especially among young
people. Prevalence estimates increased from 4-6% in 2014-2015 to a whopping 30-60% in 2019 in less than
five years.[1] In 2022, over 98% of Saudis are an active internet users[2].
This greatly increases the risk of cyberbullying. A recent cross sectional study had been conducted in Al-Jouf
region showed that 30% out of 410 participants were involved in cyberbullying.[3]and there is no mixed
method research had been conducted in cyberbullying among high school students in KSA.

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 RESEARCH QUESTIONS / OBJECTIVES
Quantitative question/OBJ
• How much bullying, cyberbullying, and victimization are spread among high school students who become victims of these
actions? and how the magnitude of witnesses?
1. To assess the prevalence rates of bullying and cyberbullying, victimization, and witnessing among victims high school students

Qualitative question/OBJ
• What experiences, perspectives, conceptions, and underlying motivations which victims high school students form
and express about bullying and cyberbullying?
2. To explain victims high school students experiences, perspectives, conceptions, and underlying motivations for
bullying and cyberbullying.

Mixed method question/OBJ

• How does the victims high school students in-person interview data help to explain the bullying and cyberbullying
prevalence data?
3. To understand how those students’ experiences, perspectives conceptions, and underlying motivations for bullying and
cyberbullying help to explain the impact of the bullying rates. 5
 5 articles :

LITERAT
1. Prevalence, perception, and associated factors with bullying
among high school students in Buraidah, Qassim: a cross-
sectional study

URE 2. Understanding Bullying and Cyberbullying Through an

Ecological Systems Framework: The Value of Qualitative
Interviewing in a Mixed Methods Approach

REVIEW 3. A mixed methods approach to understanding cyberbullying: A

role for both quantitative and qualitative research
4. "I felt angry, but I couldn't do anything about it": a qualitative
study of cyberbullying among Taiwanese high school students
5. Understanding young people’s Experiences and Perceptions of
relational bullying: A mixed methods study

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ARTICLE -1 Prevalence, perception, and associated factors with bullying among high school students
in Buraidah, Qassim: a cross-sectional study

Research Sample Size/

Year Author Design Target Population Country
Method Technique

2018 Aram Abdullah Quantitative Cross- -High school students aged Buraidah, -Sample
Aldughayyim1*, sectional from 15 to 18. Qassim region, size=560
Yasmin Sulaiman study Saudi Arabia.
Almarshoud1, Malak -inclusion: -cluster sampling
Mohammed Alanazi 1, technique was
This study included both
Marah Ali Al Mutairi 1, used by dividing
Saudi and non-Saudi nationals
Raghad Saleh Buraidah into
and the students whose
Aldahman1, Abeer four regions
families agreed to participate.
Abuzeid Atta which are north,
Elmannan2 -exclusion: south, west, and
east. Two
The students who were aged schools were
more than 18 or less than 15 selected
years and students with family randomly from
refusal were excluded from each region.
the study

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 ARTICLE 1 ... cont.
Tool/Instrument
A validated written questionnaire was
used with permission from a published
Omani study. The questionnaire was
designed to collect the demographic
factors (age, sex, number of siblings,
and birth order), history of academic
failure, number of school days missed,
and exposure to bullying (Type, place,
person, cause leading to bullying, and
perception).
Findings
-266 out of 560 were bullied, and the prevalence was significantly higher among females
(51%) compared to males (49%), with the average age of the whole study sample being 16.74
years.
-The majority of students were absent for about 1-3 days.
- The most common type encountered by both genders was verbal bullying (36%), where
(52%) in males and (48%) in females. The second type of bullying was social bullying (22.9%),
which showed a significant difference between females (68%) and males (32%).
-The most common bullying places from highest to lowest prevalence: school (63.5%), home
(12.5%), neighborhood (8.8%), bus (7.6%), other (4.6%), and shopping areas (3%)
-Most of the bullied students were bullied due to their physical appearance which accounted
for 48%. Followed by problems with speaking (23%), academic performance (17%), suffering
from disease (7%), and disability. (5%). Speaking problem and physical appearance was
insignificantly higher among males than females. Furthermore, academic performance was
also insignificant higher among females other than males
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 ARTICLE 1 ... cont.
Future Research Suggestion
Schools must establish strict
punishments regarding this issue. The
competent authorities were also
encouraged to undertake necessary
actions to raise awareness of this social
problem and search for solutions to stop
it, especially among children.
Strength Limitation
• Inexpensive
• Most of the questionnaires distributed
• Easy and quick to conduct.
were not returned, and some school
principals were uncooperative.
Students’ responses were not complete
•
and some of them showed
contradictions. This might be due to the
fact that they didn’t understand the
questions, as it was self-administered.
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ARTICLE -2- Understanding Bullying and Cyberbullying Through an Ecological Systems
Framework: The Value of Qualitative Interviewing in a Mixed Methods Approach

Sample
Research Target
Year Author Country Size/ Tool/Instrument
Method Design Population
Technique
2022 Faye Mishna Mixed prospectiv students North students quantitative research:
Methods e cohort (4th,7th&10th America (n=670), questionnaire /
study grades), parents, parents qualitative research: an
and teachers (n=246), in-person interview
teachers
(n=103) / a
stratified
random
sampling study

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 Findings
The quantitative findings:
∙ rates of cyber witnessing were higher than cyberbullying and
victimization at each assessment.
∙ rates of witnessing traditional bullying were higher than
perpetration and victimization.
∙ Nearly half of all students (48.3%), who have cyberbullying
involvement reported that they had not told an adult about
what was happening online.
∙ 69.5% of students reported that cyberbullying and physical
bullying are equally serious.
∙ 64.5% believed that cyberbullying and “real” life verbal
bullying are also equally serious.
∙ 15.6% of students in grades 7 and 10 had seen nude or sexual
photos of friends, family, boyfriend, girlfriend, or another
romantic partner online or over a cell phone.
∙ 27.8% of teachers had witnessed or were aware of their
students viewing sexually explicit images, videos, or texts on
cell phones at school. (The data indicated that digital sending
and receiving of sexually explicit images, video, or text was a
new phenomenon among youth participants in grades 7 and
10 in a rapidly changing digital environment.)
The qualitative findings:
∙ About half of the students were reticent about speaking with
adults and turned to friends.
∙ Participant interviews further revealed that media reports of
high-profile cases involving cyberbullying can serve as
benchmarks through which to assess the severity of their own
personal experiences
∙ boys’ presence and participation in cyberbullying were
frequently invisible, such as the non-consensual sharing of
sexual images and girls were spotlighted and their behavior
problematized through negative characterizations
∙ Boys’ behaviors were often not considered to be bullying
because they were positioned as within the bounds of
masculine gender norms and thus underreported in the
quantitative surveys while captured in the interviews
∙ children and youth reported that overall, it was more positive
to participate in the research
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 ARTICLE 2 ... cont.

strength
∙ This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
∙ Through quantitative measures and qualitative interviews, our mixed methods study examined participant perspectives regarding
bullying and cyberbullying on the various ecological systems levels across the students’ lives.
∙ The use of mixed methods facilitated a dialogue between the participant responses to both methodologies, thus highlighting the
salience of the overlapping influence and interactions among the systems levels. Such complex and nuanced understanding is
necessary to inform meaningful prevention and intervention strategies to address bullying and cyberbullying.
∙ This interaction of data types maximizes the voices of and collaboration with participants as well as knowledge generation.

Limitations Future Research Suggestions

∙ The quantitative results of the study are not detailed in the tables “Gendered and sexualized bullying and
∙ The details of the tools used in data collection and how to score the cyberbullying: Spotlighting girls and making boys
answers to the questionnaire were not clarified in this study invisible”
∙ Focusing on the value of qualitative research more than presenting the
actual results of the interviews conducted through it

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9468061/ 12
 ARTICLE -3- A mixed methods approach to understanding cyberbullying: A role
for both quantitative and qualitative research[4]

Sample
Research Target
Year Author Country Size/ Tool/Instrument
Method Design Population
Technique
2013 Karen Espey 1 Mixed sequential The target pupils Northern -757 students / Quantitative Phase
Conor Mc Methods explanator was aged from 8 Ireland students (questionnaire)-
Guckin2 y design to 11 years volunteered to
Qualitative Phase(2
participate in
Joseph Duffy3 attending a sample focus groups one of
the research
of secondary 8 pupils who were all
schools in attending the same
Northern Ireland. school - and the other
consist 6 pupils
attending a different
school)

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 ARTICLE 3 ... cont.

Findings
Quantitative Findings (Levels of f2f bullying were significantly high ) Qualitative Findings ( some students use multiple means
to target victim - there is Indirect retaliation- young people may be more likely to tell a friend about cyber-
bullying than a parent or a teacher-)Effective coping strategies for cyber-bullying)

Future Research Suggestions Limitations strength

The severity of the impact of cyberbullying on The study is limited to students of the study provides a multi-faceted
people schools in Northern Ireland – the insight into cyberbullying.
small number of students participate
in the 2 focus group

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 ARTICLE -4 -"I felt angry, but I couldn't do anything about it": a qualitative study of cyberbullying
among Taiwanese high school students[5]

Research Sample Size/ Tool/

Year Author Target Population Country
Method Design Technique Instrument

2019 Chia-Wen Wang Qualitative In-depth -high school students Taipei in -48 /students Data were
-Patou Masika interviews (aged 16 to 18 ) from Taiwan volunteered to collected through
Musumari- five school participate in the
in-depth
Teeranee research
Techasrivichien interviews based
on semi-
structured
questionnaires.

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 ARTICLE 4 ... cont.

Findings
The researchers found that experiences with cyberbullying were widespread, often occurring anonymously and publicly on
unofficial school Facebook pages created by students, were subject to verbal abuse, and photo uploads, and discovered that it
manifests itself in many ways, including removing victims from friend groups. - the researchers conclude that there is an urgent
need for Taiwan's school system to develop cyberbullying prevention programs.

Future Research Suggestions Limitations strength

The severity of the impact of cyberbullying on the
cyberbullying victims-study teachers’ understanding
of cyberbullying and their support for creating
awareness of cyberbullying.
1- self-selection bias. 1-the researcher captured new
2-Due to the sensitive nature of the beliefs
subject matter, it is possible that this 2- the sample size was good
study failed to capture some important
aspects of cyberbullying (the
perpetrator's perspective of
cyberbullying).

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ARTICLE -5- Understanding young people’s Experiences and Perceptions of
relational bullying: A mixed methods study

Year Author Research Method Country

2013 Kayleigh Louise Chester Mixed Methods England.

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 ARTICLE 5 ... cont.

Research Target Sample Size/

Design Tool/Instrument
Method Population Technique
Quantitative secondary young people aged 2014 HBSC used a total of Descriptive statistics: by looking at the
analysis of data 11, 13, and 15 5335 young people from frequency (prevalence) of this behavior
collected as part years in England 48 schools who by gender, age, SES, and ethnicity.
of the 2014 who attended participated in Inferential statistics: by tests of
HBSC study school, this the 2014 HBSC England statistical significance, a regression
carried out in corresponded to study. / Cluster sampling model for a continuous outcome and
England. school years 7, 9 was used. multinomial regression model for a
2014HBSC is a and 11 categorical variable (regression models
Cross- respectively. examined the association between
Sectional relational bullying and three health and
Survey. wellbeing outcomes: general self-rated
health, health-related quality of life
(HRQL) and life satisfaction.). The 5%
level of significance was used to identify
the main effects.

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 ARTICLE 5 ... cont.
Findings
The quantitative analysis identified 16.6% of
the young people (13.7% of boys and 19.7% of
girls) had
experienced relational bullying in the ‘past
couple of months prior to the survey.
Multilevel regression models identified a
significant association between experiencing
relational bullying
and reporting poorer health and well-being
outcomes, whilst controlling for other forms of
bullying and
demographic variables.
Limitations strength
generalizability, the accuracy of inexpensive, easy to conduct
responses, young people under- and useful for establishing
report being bullied, the cross- preliminary evidence in
The sectional nature of the 2014 planning a
HBSC data set allows for the future advanced study.
identification of relationships
within the data,
But it cannot indicate causation
or the direction of the
relationship, and the study is
unable to draw any
conclusions about those whom
both experienced and
perpetrated relational bullying.
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 ARTICLE 5 ... cont.

Research Target Sample Size/

Design Tool/Instrument
Method Population Technique

Qualitative face-to-face young people data collected from 11 young people Thematic analysis which is a recent
individual (aged 12-18 (aged 12-18 years) through semi- approach towards analyzing
interviews. years) in structured, face-to-face interviews. qualitative data.
England. Young people were recruited via two
secondary schools - one from
the East Midlands and one from the
East of England.

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ARTICLE 5 ... cont.
Findings:
bullied young were associated
with lower KIDSCREEN-10
scores for boys and girls.
Limitations
The sample size was small, the sample was
underrepresented by males, the young
people
Autonomy, the researcher’s gender may
play an important role during fieldwork.
Strength
extrapolate any evolving beliefs,
much easier at times for
researchers, less stringent than
quantitative ones, speculate more
on answers, can target any area of
concern.
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 ARTICLE 5 ... cont.

Research Target Sample Size/

Design Tool/Instrument
Method Population Technique
Mixed a sequential mixed methods young people in 5346 (5335 quantitative Sequential Explanatory
Methods design: a dominant quantitative England + 11 qualitative). Strategy
research phase followed by a
qualitative research phase.

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 ARTICLE 5 ... cont.

Future research
Findings Limitations Strength
Suggestions
Relational bullying is significantly associated future research different participants easy to implement
with the health and wellbeing of young focusing specifically across each of the and easy to
people. on boys’ experiences research components describe and
Thematic analysis of qualitative data and perceptions (because The HBSC report.
resonated with the quantitative findings, also of relational bullying England
illustrating the would be beneficial. study is anonymous in
harmful effects of relational bullying, and nature, preventing the
identifying internal (e.g., personal well being) follow-up of individual
and external (e.g., the family) resources participants).
which young people perceived as supporting
them through relational
bullying.

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TARGET POPULATION
Inclusion Exclusion
Quantitative 1-students enrolled in the selected high school 1-who gave incomplete response
2-male and female 2-students that does have experience with
3- aged from 15-18 years technology
4-present at Time of the study 3-All participants with mental or learning
disabilities
4-students with family refusal

Qualitative adolescent students aged 15–18 years, who had

experience of traditional school bullying or
cyberbullying as victims

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The purpose of the current paper is to demonstrate the contributions of qualitative research in understanding the phenomena of
bullying and cyberbullying and enriching and complementing the findings of quantitative methodology
Qualitative inquiry of bullying and cyberbullying provides a research methodology capable of bringing to the fore salient
discourses and otherwise invisible nuances that might not be accessed through quantitative studies
When engaging with complex phenomena such as cyberbullying, conceptual and methodological multiplicity offers distinct
insights into research questions
When quantitative and qualitative research are used in combination, it is possible to obtain deeper as well as more
comprehensive and accurate understanding of young people’s experiences, which increases the likelihood of informing
strategies and responses that can effectively address the needs of children and adolescents
While quantitative approaches strive for objectivity by examining general concepts, such as cyberbullying, and parceling those
concepts into specific, concrete, and understandable behaviors
qualitative interviews give voice to children and youth, enabling them to express their thoughts and feelings about themselves,
their relationships, environments, and the world in which they live

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1-Internet addiction among Saudi Arabian youth. Saquib J.2020 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7069663/
2-Saudi Arabia Social Media Statistics 2021 | Internet & Mobile Statistics 2023 https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/saudi-arabia-social-media-users/
3-Cyberbullying Victimization among Middle School Students , Aljouf Region. Ohud Abdulrahman ALdaghmi 2023
4-https://www.lenus.ie/bitstream/handle/10147/299947/Espey%20Mc%20Guckin%20and%20Duffy.pdf?sequence=6&isAllowed=y
5-https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7005-9
6- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34677227/

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