Examination of cyberbullying awareness of parents with 36-72 months of children, tackle cyberbullying or victimization and prevention strategies

Cyberbullying awareness of parents

Abstract

This study aims to determine the state of awareness of cyberbullying of preschool parents in Edirne, whether they are cyberbullies or cyber victims, and whether they create strategies by taking security measures to combat cyberbullying. The research was conducted in the 2019-2020 academic year, a total of 15 public, private and independent kindergartens of the Ministry of National Education in Edirne city center were held with parents whose children were educated. The Cyberbullying Scale for University Students, developed by Tanrıkulu and Erdur Baker (2020), the questionnaire prepared by the researcher, and the interview form prepared by the researchers were used as a data collection tool.  Content analysis was performed for the data obtained from interview forms. SPSS 24 software was used for all analyses. According to the results of the analysis, parents' cyberbullying levels are lower than cyber victimization levels. Being cyberbullying levels of male parents are higher than female parents. Being cyberbully levels are higher for parents who use the Internet for an average of 3-5 hours per day than parents who use 0-2 hours. It is also found that being cyberbullying levels are higher for parents who had not heard of cyberbullying than parents who had heard of it. The parents who participated in the study stated that they were most aware of the concept of cyberbullying through social media. More than half of the parents who participated in the interview emphasized that they have the main control and responsibility to protect children from cyberbullying, and they also emphasized that parents should restrict the usage time of the Internet and information technologies for their children.