Literature Review Activity:

Read the following Literature Review on Cyberbullying and answer the following questions:

A. How many sources have been used?

B. What transitional words have been used when synthesizing the sources?

C. What are the conclusions of the synthesis?

D. How do all the sources relate to the research question posed by the student?

E. How are the sources grouped? Chronologically, methodologically, theoretically,

thematically? Justify your answer. Tell us why?

F.

Do you feel confident of the scope of research that has been conducted and does it give

you a clear picture of the background of research that has been conducted on the topic

before the student can add his/her research?

Review of Literature on Prevelance of Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is something that has become a new social phenomenon in today's

society. It can often times leave students unable to escape their bullies and leave them feeling

alone and helpless. Faucher, Jackson, and Cassidy (2014) performed a study on 1925 students

across four Canadian universities that found 24.1 percent of students had been the victims of

cyberbullying over the last twelve months. These shocking numbers show that nearly one in

every four people have been the victims of this phenomenon. This statistic is interesting however

because when compared to studies that were done amongst younger age students you see that the

numbers are drastically different. Wegge, Vandebosch, and Eggermont(2014) found that among

1,458 13-14 year old students that considerably less students reported being cyberbullied. This is

very similar to what Vanderbosch and Van Cleemput (2009) found among 2052 students in the

12-18 ranges which concluded that 11.1 percent of students had been victims of cyberbullying.

This research concludes that cyberbullying appears to be more prevelant in students as they get

older. Wegge et al. (2014) also noted that 30.8 percent had been victims of traditional bullying.

This raises the question as to why it seems to be less prevalent among younger students.

Is it possible that they simply don't have as much access to the tools of Cyberbullying that

students at the university level have, or they possibly aren't as technologically advances as their

older peers? It continues to raise questions about the issue of cyberbullying as well as what

classifies the perpetrators as well as what are their reasons for harming others. The types of

people who bully. An important factor when analyzing cyberbullying is trying to understand the

types of people who are the aggressors. The first thing that needs to be discussed when analyzing

this is the simple matter of gender when it comes to who is generally the aggressor. Slonje and

Smith (2008) found that when it comes to cyberbullying males are more often than not the

aggressors with males being reported as the cyberbully far more often than females. Slonje et al

(2008) also found that 36.2 percent of students were unaware of the gender of their aggressors.

This is intriguing because for one its is the same percentage as the number of males who bullied,

but most importantly because it shows that over 1 in 3 students don't actually know who is