REVIEW OF A JOURNAL ARTICLE

o Bibliography

Author, Sun, C., & Feng, G. (2009). Cyberbullying among EFL students’ blogging
activities: motives and proposed solutions. English Language Teaching, 20(2), 3-20.

o Problem

As the world enters the digital era, teaching methods have also been revolutionized to
a great extent, which is mostly featured by the integration of technology into
teaching. Blogs are therefore involved as part of teaching and learning process,
especially in EFL context, since this is where students post their study materials,
complete online assignments, and probably more importantly, they can enjoy much
freedom to speak up and share their thoughts via posts and comments without being
constantly judged by the teachers. However, it is this feeling of freedome that open
the way for aggressive comments and posts, which, either accidentially or on purpose,
hurt the feeling of those targeted. As a result, the victims’ mental well-being might
not be guaranteed, and cyberbullies would make things even worse when the affected
are students. Given the case, there is little research found that puts weight on the
investigation of cyberbullies in blog activities, though ones shedding light on
cyberbullies in typical networking websites such as Facebook and Instagram are
abundant, hence the need to explore more on the former.

Comments: The problem statements were alligned with the title, but it seems that the
problems were not convincing enough in terms of the effects it might cause to the
students involved. This is because blogs are part of the institution’s curriculum, and
for that reason, what students post on their timeline are often properly managed by
those in charge of organzing this activities. That should also explain why it is hard to
find a study devoted to this aspect of research.
o Review of Literature

o The background to the study was thoroughly described in this article with different
references and citations from previous studies related to cyberbullying. A good point
is that the literature review was fertilized with up-to-date data, that is, most of the
studies cited in this part were conducted quite close to the present time. It is important
to note that the present research, which aimed at investigating (1) students’
cyberbullying motives; (2) whether students’ motives change over time; and (3)
possible solutions to address the problems, is a follow-up of a preliminary study by
Hamuddin et al. (2019) on students’ cyberbullying motives.
o Hypothesis

The study aimed to look at whether students’ cyberbullying motives observed in blog
activities changed over the 18-month period, in comparison with a 3-month period of
the preliminary research. That is, the author attempted to explore any changes that
might arise given different amount of time alloted to the observing stage in each
study.

Comments: The purpose was clearly and concisely stated and agreed with the title. It
was limited to the researchers’ capabilities and resources.

o Objectives

As already stated, the article represented a follow-up study of the preliminary one
done by another researcher and was set to examine (1) students’ cyberbullying
motives; (2) whether students’ motives change over time; and (3) possible solutions
to address the problems, which were closely based on the World Health Organization
(WHO) framework.
 Comments: The objectives of the research well fit the resources, i.e., participants,
instruments and time, available for the author. The statement of the objectives was,
however, not clear and showed some inconsistency at times.

o Methodology

In this study, purposive sampling was employed as the primary approach to determine
participants. The population was all students in English Education Department of
University of Lancang Kuning (Unilak) who had finished or were, at that time, doing
the courses in which blog activities played a part. There were 251 students’ blogs
involved in this research, and the focus was put on students’ comments and posts that
could be considered cyberbullying in one way or another.
It is worth noting again that the study inherited achievements of preliminary work by
Hamuddin et al. (2019) and hence following the categorization of students’
cyberbullying motives. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected. The
quantitative data consisted of cyberbullying comments, and the students who made
“bullying” comments most frequently, as recorded by the authors, were interviewed
so as to further investigate why they behaved as such. The interviewing excerpts
together made up the qualitative data for analysis.

Comments: The methods used to gather data was explained carefully in great details.
As the study sought to shed light on students’ motives when they bullied others
online, the authors decided to interview some stand-out figures to collect qualitative
data, apart from examining cyberbullying comments made by all the students, in
order to really understand the insight of their doings. Also, the research took place in
a duration of 18 months, which was adequate for observing any possible changes in
students’ motives over the time.
Nonetheless, although the author did include some spoken texts extracted from the
interview with students, the content of the interview, i.e., the questionnaire, was
nowhere to be found in the article. This was of paramount importance, since it
affected how the results were interpreted.
o Findings

After collecting and analysing data, the researchers classified students’ motives into
three types: just to have fun; to fight back; and to express upset feelings. Among
those, just to have fun was reported to be the most prevalent factor that facilitated
students’ cyberbullying behaviors when it came to online blogging. This was
followed by to fight back, and to express upset emotions remained the least significant
motive.
Regarding whether there was any change observed in terms of students’ motives over
the time compared to a preliminary study, the statistics indicated that they stayed
virtually the same.
Might that be the case, the researchers, via interviews, just to confirm again that most
cyberbullying comments investigated were not intended to hurt the so-call victims.

Comments: The findings concerning students’ cyberbullying motives were well-

supported by figures. However, what the researchers drew from qualitative data, i.e.,
interview excerpts, I believe, was somewhat unjustified because the article did not
include the content of the interview nor the criteria to determine reliability of
students’ answer, i.e., whether they were answering the questions sincerely.

o Summary

No summary was found in the article.

o Conclusions

The author consolidates again three motives of students when they committed
cyberbullying behaviors, which were just for fun; to fight back; and to express upset
feelings, as well as proposed a framework by WHO to address the problems to a
certain extent.
 Comments: The conclusions were done concisely with a summary to the findings
and discussion of the current study and recommendations for future research.

o Recommendations

The study proposed a modal by WHO to address cyberbullying, which were broken
down into 4 steps: promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative. The framework
was believed to prove its usefulness to both university lecturers and school teachers.
Besides, the authors believed the research will facilitate future studies on
cyberbullying for elementary-level students, as learning English via blogs has gained
greater popularity even amongst youngsters. Given the case, there is no guarantee that
children are excluded altogether from cyberbullying activities.

Comments: The recommendations were valubale and would definitely open the way
for coming research about cyberbullying at different levels of study.

o Overall Critique

In general, this was a study of reasonable educational significance. It was well-

supported with both qualitative and quantitative data to generate a relatively reliable
outcome. The findings were also discussed in depth and suggestions of possible
solutions were brought about with clear elaboration and guidelines. Nevertheless,
there are, in some parts, a gap to be fulfilled, such as the interpretation of the
interview excerpts, and their reliabilty. In this study, the authors used interviews to
explore motives, which could be considered a good idea, but it would be
unreasonable to rule out the possibility that the interviewees were not telling the truth,
especially with the presence of the researcher(s). Also, to really determine whether
the cyberbullies intentionally hurt the bullied, it is worth looking at other factors such
as the way they responded to each other's comment, the relationship between the
cyberbullies and the buillied, aside from the interviewing excerpts themselves. As a
matter of fact, concluding that someone is doing harm on purpose or not is not as
simple as observing what they do and listening to what they say, hence the need to
take into account a great deal of other contributing factors.