THE UNIVERSITY OF DODOMA

THE COLLEGE OF INFORMATICS AND VIRTUAL EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

PROGRAM: BSc SE
COURSE TITLE: ICT RESEARCH METHODS
COURSE CODE: IS 221
RESEARCH TITLE: EXTENT OF CYBER BULLYING OF STUDENTS AT THE
UNIVERSITY LEVEL
SUPERVISOR NAME: MR. BIGTEN KIKOBA
GROUP MEMBERS

S/NO STUDENT NAMES REGISTRATION NUMBER SIGNATURE

1 CHARLES KADETE T/UDOM/2020/00369 C.Kadete
2 ABDULHAMID ALEY T/UDOM/2020/07099 A.Alley
3 SHIMBE MAJESTIC T/UDOM/2020/00362 S.Majestic

4 MASEILI MUSA T/UDOM/2020/00384 M.Musa

5 ZUHRA BAKARI T/UDOM/2020/00348 Z.Bakari
6 NASRA MOHAMED T/UDOM/2020//00376 N.Mohamed
7 DENNIS SOSTHENES T/UDOM/2020/07100 D.Sosthenes
8 ANUARI ISSA T/UDOM/2020/00345 A.Issa

9 JOSEPH MWANUKE T/UDOM/2020/00347 J.Mwanuke

10 BRIGHTNESS SHIYO T/UDOM/2020/00344 B.Shiyo

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 ABBREVIATIONS
CIVE ---------- College of Informatics and Virtual Education
UDOM -------- University of Dodoma
IT--------------- Information Technology

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 AKNOWLEDGMENT
The first and foremost we would like to thank God who gave us life, good health and strength to
accomplish this work. Also our sincere gratitude extends to our instructor and supervisor, Mr.
Mwogosi and Mr. Bigten Kikoba respectively. Our research has been possible because of their full
support and guidance which enabled us to collect data and helped us accomplish this task. We
convey our whole hearted gratitude to our friends and students around the college, who offered us
moral, financial and academic support during this study.

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 ABSTRACT
Background: Patchin (2014) defines cyberbullying “as willful and repeated harm inflicted
through the use of computers, cell phones, or other electronic devices.” Cyberbullying is the most
often act of using the internet to negatively portray or interact with another person. Cyberbullying
includes cyber-stalking, sending threatening or degrading messages that frighten, harass,
intimidate or even abuse a person, public humiliation, destruction of property, social exclusion, or
theft according to Florida statute 784.048 (2014). These actions most likely often result in
psychological distress including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, loss of interest in activities,
and substance abuse, but may even contribute to physical sickness or suicide. Despite the efforts
by the governments and other sectors around the world to explain those effects in order to decrease
it but cyberbullying spread day by day especially on students. The study underlines the landscape
of finding the extent of cyberbullying, the way it spreads and decision making in the effect it
makes.
Methods: The study was carried out at the University of Dodoma in College of Informatics and
Virtual Education. An interpretive mixed study design was used. In-depth questionnaires was
conducted among University students. The questionnaire targeted to gain a deeper understanding
from the students themselves on how cyberbullying affect them and at what extent cyberbullying
is at universities.
Results: Many students answered that they did not face cyberbullying, although few of them
explained that they faced it. Moreover, it has been noted that the number of students did not face
at all. Despite the presence of the few cases of cyberbullying, those cases have been solved well.
Conclusion: There are several implications that can be drawn from this study to be of interest to
the practitioners and researcher communities towards improving decision-making practices in
cyberbullying. Further research may be required to examine more solutions of facing
cyberbullying on all kind like doxing, cyberstalking, harassment and masquerading, and this would
be helpful in providing novel insights and the way on how to act when facing cyberbullying to the
concerned students in universities.
Keywords: Cyberbullying.

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Contents
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 7
1.1 PRIMARY GOAL .............................................................................................................................. 7
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH ......................................................................................................... 7
1.3 ACHIEVEMENT STATUS OF THE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES ................................................ 8
1.3.1 ACHIEVEMENT STATUS OF GOALS .................................................................................... 8
1.3.2 ACHIEVEMENT STATUS OF OBJECTIVES .......................................................................... 8
2 LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................................... 9
3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................. 11
3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 11
3.2 LOCATION OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................... 11
3.3 POPULATION OF THE STUDY .............................................................................................. 11
3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHOD ................................................................................................... 11
4 RESULTS ........................................................................................................................................... 12
4.1 THE EXTENT OF CYBERBULLYING OF STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL . 12
4.2 EFFECT OF CYBERBULLYING TO STUDENTS. ....................................................................... 13
4.3 MEASURES TO BE TAKEN AGAINST CYBERBULLYING ..................................................... 14
5 DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................................... 16
5.1 REASONS FOR WHY PEOPLE FAILS TO REPORT AFTER BEING BULLIED .................... 16
6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION .................................................................................. 18
6.1 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 18
6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................ 18
7 REFERENCE ...................................................................................................................................... 21

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1 Table showing extent of cyberbullying at university level ............................................................. 12
Table 2 Table showing the distribution of victims who seek advice .......................................................... 15

Figure 1 Figure showing extent of cyberbullying of students at university level ....................................... 13

Figure 2 Figure showing the advisory pattern ............................................................................................ 15

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 1. INTRODUCTION
Cyberbullying is an act/process of harassing or intimidating someone with information and
communication technologies, with the rapid growth of social media over the last two
decades.
Cyberbullying can be in forms like exclusion (being ignored while giving opinions to your
friends), harassment, doxing (someone reveals private or sensitive information), cyberstalk
(extends to threat and false accusation), masquerading (when a bully creates fake profile
of a victim) and others.
Cyberbullying notably began in the 1990s as the internet expanded followed by mobile
revolution. One among the first documented causes of cyberbullying dates back to 2007,
the Megan Meier case that involved the death of 13 years old girl due to mental harassment
on Facebook.
Cyberbullying phenomenon has increasingly become a significant issue due to the wide
accessibility internet platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter, tick tock, snapchat
and so many others around the globe. According to Willard (2004), cyberbullying can take
different forms, with the main form ranging from flaming, to harassment, to cyberstalking.
These occur by sending offensive messages and texts, comments, and exposing sexual
recordings and photos without one’s concern.
Taking our country as its now on the wave of cyberbullying faced by university students
both male and female. This study explores the university student’s beliefs and behaviors
associated with cyberbullying.

1.1 PRIMARY GOAL

The primary goal of this research was to know at what extent is cyber bullying of
students in universities. If there is any, to analyze who are the most affected victims
between men and women.

1.2 OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH

 To identify the existence of cyber bullying.
 To know how cyberbullying affects students in universities.
 To spread awareness to the societies on the effects of cyber bullying.
 To identify the type or kind of cyber bullying that affects mostly in universities.
 To know which victims are highly affected between men and women.

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  To know if the affected victims have been helped in any way or seek for advice
from experts.

1.3 ACHIEVEMENT STATUS OF THE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

1.3.1 ACHIEVEMENT STATUS OF GOALS
The status is that the extent of cyberbullying in universities is low and the
most affected victims are women.

1.3.2 ACHIEVEMENT STATUS OF OBJECTIVES

Through the objectives of our research the achievement was low since there
was no much response due to the fact that not every person was comfortable
to admit that he/she has been affected by cyberbullying and the ones who
admitted, we were able to spread awareness to them and advise them to seek
advice from experts.

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 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
A comprehensive of research pertaining to cyberbullying was completed. Various
findings indicate that cyberbullying is becoming predominant as students spent much of
their time using technology than they spend on written documents. This chapter will
include various findings and reports on cyber bullying as presented by other researchers

Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to cause

harm to others (Belsey, 2004). Cyberbullying involves the use of email, cellphone-text,
multimedia message, personal website and online personal polling sites. Victims of
cyberbullying are often fearful of telling other individuals about being bullied because of
the fear that may actually become worse by exposing their secrets.

According to Willard there are three related concerns in addition to the various forms of
cyberbullying. The cyberbullying act done by people mainly aims at affecting individuals
targeted as one of the ways of attaining fame and money but also it acts as a way of
payback to those who have been hurt in one way or another by the target. These are
students disclosing massive amounts of personal information via the internet, becoming
addicted to the internet to the point where the lives are highly dependent on their time
spent online and the prevalence of homicide and self-harm methods (Willard ,2006).

Hinduja & Patchin (2008) found that a large group affected by cyberbullying is women.
Their research provided the reasons why females participate in and experience
cyberbullying more often than males. They found that due to females being more verbal
and cyberbullying being text based, it is more likely for females to partake in
cyberbullying. Females also tend to bully in more emotional and psychological ways,
such as spreading rumors and gossiping, which is more in line with cyberbullying.
Females tend to be less confrontational when in a face to face situation and therefore the
anonymity of the online community may be more appealing to them.

A 2004 survey done by I-SAFE America, presented a statistic that about 42% of the total
number of school-aged students had been reported bullied while using the internet. This
percentage has kept on increasing drastically to a level of 72% and this rate has brought

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 awareness to the governments sectors across the world, of the seriousness that this aspect
has brought to teens all over the world.

Another source stated that, cyber bullying is a speech that is defamatory, constituting
bullying, harassment and discrimination and that discloses personal information, or
contains offensive, vulgar or derogatory comments (Willard, 2003: 66). Such a definition
tactically shows that cyberbullying can include sending derogatory message(s) to an
individual or group of people, harassing and hurting them for achieving a certain impact.
However, their definition lacks one important component and that is the age of those
involved. Hence, this research will focus on cyberbullying of students at the university
level and the extent at which it interrupts their learning outcomes.

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 3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 INTRODUCTION
The study adopted the mixed research approach that is both qualitative and quantitative
research approaches were used. In the qualitative research approach was used to get deeper
knowledge and understanding concerning cyber bullying and it offers the researcher the
opportunity to start from scratch. In the quantitative research approach aim was to analyze
mathematically as which side or group was or is more affected by cyber bullying act, is it
men or women?

3.2 LOCATION OF THE STUDY

The study was conducted at University of Dodoma specifically at College of Informatics
and Virtual Education, CIVE in Dodoma region. Where two groups of students randomly
selected were involved in the contribution of the research that are men and
women(ladies).

3.3 POPULATION OF THE STUDY

The targeted population of the study were students at CIVE, where the choice of the
participants aimed at their understanding of the cyber-bullying act and techniques used by
attackers to perform this act.

3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHOD

Data were collected from the study areas for 28days by different methods, among were
literature review, questionnaire and interview as tools for data collection. Also, semi-
structured was involved. Interviews were conducted from both groups to get their views on
why the cyberbullying is done and what techniques were used to accomplish it. They were
also asked about the challenges they faced after the act, also if they have consult anyone
for help or advice.

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 4 RESULTS
The results of this study revealed the extent of cyberbullying in university level and
uncovered its effects to the victims. It also proposed the possible solutions to help the
victims recover from this problem.

4.1 THE EXTENT OF CYBERBULLYING OF STUDENTS AT THE

UNIVERSITY LEVEL
The study identified that cyberbullying actually exists in the society. The extent at
which it occurs in universities is relatively low, most of the students have not
experienced it and a considerable number of students are not fully aware of
cyberbullying. It was also noted that the victims of cyberbullying normally don’t
take any action after they have faced this problem.

Basing on the data we have collected the following are the results we have achieved

Table 1 Table showing extent of cyberbullying at university level

WHO FACED CYBERBULLYING 3 4%

WHO HAVEN’T FACED CYBERBULLYING 55 79%
WHO ARE NOT AWARE 12 17%

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 THE EXTENT OF CYBERBULLYING OF
STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL

4%
17% WHO FACED CYBERBULLYING

WHO HAVEN’T FACED

CYBERBULLYING
WHO ARE NOT AWARE

79%

Figure 1 Figure showing extent of cyberbullying of students at university level

4.2 EFFECT OF CYBERBULLYING TO STUDENTS.

The advent of the internet has in many ways created a lot of positive connections
for people. But another side of such internet connections have also led to some
negative effects especially when it comes to the aspect of cyberbullying. Most of
students who had experienced cyberbullying faced the following effects;

Psychological Torture: According to Wikipedia, this is a type of torture that relies

mainly on psychological effects, and only secondarily on any harm inflicted. Most
of the victims are most likely to face this effect as per regard of the study conducted.
These victims mostly face cases like mental health issues, depression, anxiety,
acting out violently and low self-esteem. According to this study, a smaller number
of students who had experienced cyberbullying ended up having stress, depression,
anxiety and sometimes made some attempts that affected their mental abilities.
Some of the indiscipline attempts made by students include involving in drug
abusing, alcoholism and prostitute acts that leads to unwanted pregnancies.

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 Loss of trust; Trust is one among the best natural unseen contract that exists
between individuals who have shared some of their details with each other. This
aspect can be distorted when people find out that some of their personal details have
been publicly exposed and not knowing who had done such an act. Our study was
able to identify that among those who had experienced cyberbullying, around 75%
said that a stranger was responsible, with 25% knowing exactly who had exposed
their personal details. To the percentage that had known, their trust to friends and
even to any close person, had decreased with the fear that such an aspect can re-
occur.

Academic failure; This is a result brought about by psychological torture. Students

mainly end up having a lot of stress not knowing who to trust, who to make
discussions with and sometimes having fear to ask questions while in class or once
they face hardship while studying.

4.3 MEASURES TO BE TAKEN AGAINST CYBERBULLYING

The damage caused by such harassment can profoundly affect student’s ability to
engage in everyday social and professional situations, leaving them with minimal
vital support networks that creates self-destructive behaviors. Some of the proposed
measures were;

Promoting the spread of education on how to use various platforms. Some students
suggested that proper education on how to properly use various social platforms
should be given to individuals in the society. This is to help them while registering
on different online medias and platforms, to not offer irrelevant views and videos.
Education on how to secure their personal details and on ways to avoid making
suspicious attempts and comments on the internet with the belief of attaining
viewers, entertaining oneself and that they won’t be noticed by anyone.

Law enforcement: The government should enforce laws on the use of social medias
but also laws to capture those who tend to expose others personal details. This will
help affected individuals gain confidence to report to organizations once some of
their concrete information have been leaked.

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 Counselling; Counselling is one among the best approach to affected students. This
is because, it creates an awareness to students that life is not just about failing but
learning from your mistakes and failures, taking the courage to stand tall and face
them.

Basing on our data collection, the following show the statistics for the people who
seek advice

Table 2 Table showing the distribution of victims who seek advice

PEOPLE WHO SEEK ADVICE 20%

PEOPLE WHO DON’T SEEK ADVICE 80%

ADVISORY PATTERN

PEOPLE WHO SEEK ADVICE

20%

PEOPLE WHO DON’T SEEK

ADVICE

80%

Figure 2 Figure showing the advisory pattern

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 5 DISCUSSION
This study focused on determining the extent of cyber bullying in universities in Tanzania
sample was taken at college of informatics and virtual education at university of Dodoma.
The findings of the study determined there is low extent of cyber bullying in university
also there are some people who are not aware about cyber bullying but they might have
faced it. Also for some of victims faced cyber bullying it was difficult for them to express
their experience to their fellow or to the institution responsible for taking action for those
who bullied them leading this issue to be little while it leads to some negative effects to the
victims. The following are the reasons as to why people fail to express themselves after
being bullied.

5.1 REASONS FOR WHY PEOPLE FAILS TO REPORT AFTER BEING

BULLIED
Lack of awareness -awareness is the knowledge or perception of situation or fact. Now
most of victims who faces cyber bullying they are not aware that after being bullied they
have to take some measures so as to avoid side effect if being bullied some of these
measures can be reporting to counselling organization or some law enforcement agents so
that the person responsible for that act to be punished according to the law which will set
example to other people in society. And that awareness should be given in form of
education by introducing curriculum for cyber bullying or by starting campaigns against
cyberbullying.

Lack of skills to express oneself, also this is the problem which lead to people fail to report
cyberbullying act committed to them leading to facing various problem such as
psychological effects as this was revealed in our study most people feels awkward to share
their experience which made our research somehow complicated by getting lower response

Ignorance -ignorance means lack of knowledge or information concerning a certain matter.

Due to some reasons observed most people are ignorant concerning this matter of cyber
bullying thus why it becomes difficult for them to even know if they are bullied and what
effort to take after being bullied this is vivid as in our study some percentage of respondents

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 said maybe to the question that asks if they have ever faced cyber bullying so people should
be educated about this matter so that to make internet a good place.

The study might be constrained by inadequacy of fund to cover a larger sample in the
region. However, there was a systematic and careful selection of the participants that
enabled researchers to collect sufficient data for the study. Another issue was the fact that
some respondents were reluctant to provide information during the study as the information
seemed to be too personal to them. However, ethical issues were taken into consideration
including informing the informants on the purpose of the study and in the study no real
names of participants were revealed instead terms such as students or people.

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 6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
6.1 CONCLUSION
The study conducted revealed that cyberbullying does exist among university students
but a majority of them are fortunate enough to not have encountered this problem. But
it was also realized that a considerable amount of the students has inadequate
information concerning the issue which means that they probably might have
encountered the problem before but did not realize that they were victims. This issue
has shown that the victims suffer from psychological problems that eventually affect
their academics. Most of the victims conceal this problem from anyone so the society
might not be fully aware of the problem.

6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS
This problem is bound to grow in the coming future due to the advancement of
information and communication technology, thus the suggested measures should be
effectively implemented so as to control the effects of this problem.
 To address this problem, the gender desk of higher learning institutions should
actively offer education on the matter so as to enlighten students on the topics.
 Students should also be taught how to deal with social media platforms by
considering the cyber laws that have been enacted by the government.

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 APPENDIX: I
QUESTIONAIRE

Research on the extent of cyber bullying in universities

Cyber bullying is an act /process of harassing or intimidating someone with information and
communication technologies cyber bullying can be in forms like exclusion (being ignored while
giving opinions to your friends), harassment, doxing (someone reveals your private/sensitive
information), cyberstalking (it extends to threats and false accusation), masquerading (when a
bully creates fake profile of a victim) and others.

1. Are you male or female?

Male

Female

2. Have you ever faced cyber bullying?

Yes

No

Maybe

3. From the previous question if yes. What kind of cyber bullying did you face?

4. How did the cyberbullying act you faced affect you?

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 5. After being bullied, did you consult anyone?
Yes

No

6. If you consulted, what was their way forward to overcome the situation

7. Basing on your opinion and view to what extent cyber bullying exist in your university?

High

Medium

Low

8. If you have never faced cyber bullying. Do you know someone who experienced it?
Yes
No
9. How did it affect him or her?

10. How did you help him or her?

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 7 REFERENCE
Willard, N.E. (2006). Educators guide to cyberbullying: Addressing the harm caused by
online social cruelty. Retrieved April 4, 2009, from:
www.asdkI2.orglMiddleLinklAVBlbully_topics/ Educators Guide _ Cyberbullying.pdf

Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J. W. (2009). Bullying beyond the schoolyard: Preventing and
responding to cyberbullying. Sage Publications: Corwin Press.

Belsey, B. (2004). What is cyberbullying? Retrieved April 4, 2009, from:

www.bullying.org/external/documents/ACF6F8.pdf

Shariff, S. (2009). Confronting cyber~bullying: What schools need to know to control

misconduct and avoid legal consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Almeida, A., Coria, I., Marino, S., & Garcia, D. (2012). Virtual but less real: A study of
cyberbullying and its relations to moral disengagement and empathy. In Q. Li., D. Cross.,
& P. K. Smith (Eds.), Cyberbullying in the global playground: Research from
international perspectives, (pp. 223-244). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

https://camillamahon.wordpress.com

www.adelaide.edu.auS

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