Teachers reactions to cyberbullying: training needed, ability to act and coping strategies

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Cyberbullying has awakened a great interest in the scientific and educative community in the last decade (Smith, 2016) and has been intensified by its dangerous frequency among pupils. Because of the limited previous research on the teachers’ perception of this issue, this study analyses teachers and School Heads’ perceptions about their training needs, their ability to take actions, and the future proposals for action at schools, focusing on the coping strategies available, and their relation to sociodemographic variables. METHOD. A questionnaire designed ad hoc was used with a total of 270 teachers aged from 26 to 61 (M=44.00, SD=9.11) from 37 Public and Private schools in the Region of Murcia. RESULTS. Significant differences were found in regards to the perception of cyberbullying training needs between teachers and School Heads. Regarding the ability to take actions, women and teachers from Private Schools perceive themselves as more competent to deal with cyberbullying. There was a significant correlation between future proposals for action at schools and an ability to act by all teachers, likewise between the different coping strategies developed by only group of teachers and group of School heads, respectively. In some cases, a significant relationship was observed between some coping strategies developed and the gender of the participants, the different levels teachers taught their class or type of school. DISCUSSION. This study provides an improvement in the importance of teachers manner in regardsto coping with cyberbullying, their knowledge about strategies that they develop at schools and of the differences that appear in relation to gender, school ownership, level, and between teachers and School Heads. In this sense, educative implications should be guided to improve teacher training and provide them with tools and specific abilities to actively prevent cyberbullying.