Theoretical basis for the program

To scientifically assess the student and parent school-based cyberbullying interventions, the researchers used The Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) (Witte, 1992) to evaluate the effectiveness of the fear appeals used in the presentation materials of the student and parent interventions. The EPPM is a message-based model that explains that susceptibility, severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy play a significant role in individuals’ intentions and behaviors. Both perceived threat (susceptibility and severity) and perceived efficacy (response-efficacy and self-efficacy) explain individuals’ differing reactions to threatening messages (Roberto & Witte, 2010). Susceptibility refers to feeling vulnerable to experiencing cyberbullying victimization. Severity refers to the intensity of the threat of experiencing cyberbullying victimization. Response-efficacy refers to the ability to control cyberbullying behavior. Self-efficacy refers to the perceived competency one feels to engage in constructive behaviors to prevent or reduce the cyberbullying behavior.

The EPPM suggests that adolescents may react differently to the exposure of the fear appeals used in cyberbullying messages. When a cyberbullying message is perceived to be unthreatening to the adolescents, then adolescents will feel that they are not susceptible to cyberbullying and may ignore the message, and thus, do nothing about the cyberbullying behavior. If adolescents’ cyberbullying experiences are perceived to be highly self-threatening and if they perceive their efficacy to be high, then EPPM suggests that adolescents will engage in danger control, which means that students will follow through with the recommendations offered by the cyberbullying intervention (Witte, 1992). On the other hand, if adolescents perceive cyberbullying experiences to be highly self-threatening, but have low efficacy, then adolescents may engage in fear control (or abstain from complying with the presenter’s recommendations by ignoring them) (Witte, 1992). Thus, the researchers evaluated the responses to the intervention using constructs from the EPPM, first with the middle-school students and second with the middle-school parents.

In 2011, the Arizona Attorney General, Terry Goddard, introduced an intervention entitled the “Social Networking Safety Promotion and Cyberbullying Prevention” to spread awareness about cyberbullying and social networking site safety issues. For the purposes of the two intervention studies reported in this chapter, cyberbullying was defined as “the deliberate and repeated misuse of communication technology by an individual or group to threaten or harm others” (Roberto & Eden, 2010, p. 201). The interventions adopted the following definition for social network: “a socialization framework that links individuals through some common purpose, interest, or characteristic” (Hinduja & Patchin, 2009, p. 77). Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Friendster, and Xanga enable adolescents to share messages, pictures, and videos with their social networking friends. This program is an example of a school-based intervention used to prevent cyberbullying in middle-school students in Phoenix, Arizona. The intervention consisted of a presenter who spoke for 45 minutes to the students about safety precautions in social networking sites such as Facebook, the use of communication technologies such as cell phones and e–mail, and specific recommendations to prevent cyberbullying behaviors. Social networking message examples were provided within the presentation to illustrate adolescents’ vulnerability to the risks involved in social networking sites. For example, the presenter “friended” several middle-school students prior to the presentation via the school’s Facebook page and he illustrated how easy it was to obtain students’ personal information from their Facebook profile such as their full names, addresses, and phone numbers, and how complete strangers can locate where they lived via Google Maps (Roberto, Eden, Savage, Ramos-Salazar, & Deiss, 2014). To induce adolescents’ perceived threat in cyberbullying, the presentation included cyberbullying messages such as several cyberbullying cases such as Megan Mier’s suicide story, other newsworthy stories of perpetrators who got caught and arrested for cyberbullying other adolescents, and Arizona’s cyberbullying prevention laws (Roberto et al., 2014). The objectives of the intervention consisted of (a) changing students’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, (b) stimulating the relevancy and seriousness of the threats, and (c) reducing the perceived threats though constructive preventative behaviors (Roberto et al., 2014).

Parent component

The intervention was later adapted to the parents of middle-school students. First, the intervention educated parents about the risk factors of cyberbullying to enhance the self-efficacy or competency of the parents so that they can identify and prevent cyberbullying before it occurs to their own children. Because some parents might not be technologically savvy in regards to new forms of social media such as Pinterest, Foursquare, Instagram, and Yik Yak, parents might not be able to identify the risks associated with their usage without obtaining any training. To educate the parents about cyberbullying, several examples of cyberbullied adolescents and news stories about cyberbullying were provided in the presentation. These examples also served to trigger parents’ perceived risks regarding their children’s probability of getting cyberbullied through social networking sites. Second, the parental intervention primarily focused on addressing cyberbullying behaviors rather than the safety issues regarding social networking site use. Third, the intervention highlighted three recommendations against cyberbullying, which included a) save the evidence, b) do not retaliate, and c) tell a trusted adult or an authority figure.

Roberto et al. (2014) evaluated a 45-minute speaker intervention that was adopted by a public middle school in Phoenix, AZ. The presenter shared recommendations regarding social networking safety promotion and cyberbullying issues to sixth, seventh, and eight grade middle-school students. Two-thirds of the presentation focused on social networking safety promotion and one-third on cyberbullying prevention. The field study examined the short-term effects of this intervention on these middle-school students by randomly assigning students to either the control group or the experimental group using a post-test-only control-group design with random assignment at the classroom level. The study examined the intervention’s use of social networking safety promotion, cyberbullying prevention, and cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. The study also examined the effectiveness of the intervention’s social safety networking promotion by comparing both groups. The social networking safety promotion consisted of the five recommended behaviors:

(1) Keep your social networking site profile private.

(2) Do not friend people who you do not know.

(3) Do not post photos that you do not want others to download without your permission.

(4) Do not meet face to face with someone you only met online.

(5) Tell a trusted adult when someone suspicious attacks you.

For the social networking safety (SNS) promotion, the intervention had positive effects in one or more grades (e.g., 6th graders, 7th graders) on two specific intentions (e.g., not posting photos, not meeting face to face). The main effect for the intervention across grades included severity, response efficacy, attitudes, and general intentions to practice the safe SNS behaviors. The intervention also affected the following two specific behavioral intentions: to not friend strangers and to keep their SNS profile private (Roberto et al., 2014).

This study also revealed that severity, self-efficacy, and response efficacy predicted behavioral intentions, and severity and self-efficacy predicted attitude for social networking safety (Roberto et al., 2014). Main effects for grade level were found for the three specific intentions to do the recommendations for social networking safety, which included making sure information is unavailable via SSNs, keeping SSNs private, and not friending strangers (Roberto et al., 2014).

In addition, the study examined the effects of the intervention’s cyberbullying preventative strategies. The aims of the intervention were to change students’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors about cyberbullying (Roberto et al., 2014). Another aim was to convince students that cyberbullying is relevant to them and that it is a serious threat. Students were subsequently provided with effective strategies to reduce their threats and to be able to confront cyberbullying issues. When examining the effectiveness of the intervention on cyberbullying prevention, the intervention had positive effects in one or more grades (e.g., 7th grade) for severity and susceptibility. Similarly, across grades, the intervention had positive main effects on two specific intentions (not retaliate and tell a trusted adult).

Further, findings revealed that severity was also a predictor of behavioral intentions and attitudes about cyberbullying. When examining both groups, the intervention impacted two key intentions of the experimental group: to avoid retaliating and the intentions to tell a trusted adult (Roberto et al., 2014). There was also an interaction effect with grade level with two variables: perceived severity and perceived susceptibility. For example, the effects of the cyberbullying prevention had an impact on the severity especially on the sixth and eighth grade students. The interaction effects by condition and grade were evident in the susceptibility reports by grade. Also, the intervention had an impact on attitudes of the seventh graders, but there were clear differences in attitude across the grades. In terms of behavioral intentions, there were differences across the grades as well. The intervention also made an impact on two of the recommended preventative behaviors against cyberbullying, which included (a) saving the evidence and (b) telling a trusted adult across all the grade levels. These findings suggest that the middle-school student cyberbullying prevention intervention did have short-term effects in this population’s attitudes and behavioral intentions. This intervention may be replicated in other middle-school systems to determine whether obtaining a credible speaker to speak to middle-school students helps administrators and educators prevent cyberbullying perpetration at their schools.

Finally, the authors also discuss the use of technology by middle-school students. The study found differences in the reported access to technology by grade. The majority of the sixth (78.6%), seventh (90.8%), and eighth (94.5%) graders reported having access to a personal e-mail account. Interestingly, the eighth graders (80.7%) reported having a higher access to a personal cell phone in comparison to the sixth (63.0%) and seventh (69.9%) graders. Most of the middle-school students (98.4%–100%) reported having access to a computer and all of them indicated having access to the Internet across the grade levels. Most seventh (71.2%) and eighth (86.2%) graders reporting having access to social networking sites (e.g., Facebook) in comparison to the sixth graders (53.5%). These prevalence reports suggest that most middle-school students have access to a variety of technological tools and U.S. middle schools may benefit from the implementation of social networking safety (SNS) promotion and cyberbullying interventions.

Parent component

Few school-based intervention studies exist to educate parents about their children’s risks of cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. In a public middle school in Phoenix, AZ, an intervention was conducted and a group of researchers examined the intervention’s effectiveness of parents’ perceptions about cyberbullying using a separate sample pretest-post-test quasiexperimental design with random assignment approach (Deiss, Savage, Eden, Ramos-Salazar, & Roberto, 2012). The intervention educated parents primarily about cyberbullying and it was designed to alert parents how to protect their children against cyberbullying perpetration. Parents who were interested in protecting their child against cyberbullying attended an evening presentation. The intervention consisted of a presenter who informed parents about three recommendations to talk about with their children, which included:

(1) Saving all the evidence

(2) Avoid retaliating

(3) Telling a trusted adult or authority figure

First, because cyberbullying incidents occur primarily through communication technology, children can save evidence such as e-mails, Facebook messages, Tweets, texts, and instant message scripts. Saving the evidence empowers the students and their parents to report cyberbullying incidents. Second, parents were told to tell their children to avoid retaliating back to the bullies by replying negatively back to the received messages. Studies have found that individuals who reported cyberbullying victimization reported retaliating against the offender to attain vengeance for the cyberbullying offense (Crosslin & Golman, 2014; Runions, 2013). Another study found that student retaliation was not perceived to be an effective strategy to cope with cyberbullying (Price & Dalgleish, 2010). Third, parents were told to let their children know to tell a trusted adult or authoritative figure when encountering cyberbullying incidences. A study by Crosslin and Golman (2014) found that children who tell a peer tend to engage in behaviors that escalates the cyberbullying behavior. However, children who share their cyberbullying victimization experiences with a trusted adult such as a parent or a teacher who is informed about cyberbullying perpetration are more likely to gain the social support needed to be able to confront and manage the cyberbullying behavior (Machmutow, Perren, Sticca, & Alsaker, 2012; Aricak et al., 2008). For the most part, the presenters’ three recommendations are confirmed by scholarly evidence to be effective ways of coping with cyberbullying.

Deiss et al. (2012) examined parents’ behavioral intentions of talking to their children about the three recommended behaviors following the intervention. The study used a separate-sample pretest-post-test design with random assignment to conditions. For this design, parents in the control group completed the survey with the outcome variables prior to viewing the presentation, and parents in the experimental group completed the survey with the outcome measures after viewing the presentation. The goal of this study was to determine whether the presentation impacted parents’ perceptions about their children’s susceptibility to cyberbullying behaviors and whether they would talk to their children about the three recommendations.

The study found that parents in the experimental group reported perceiving higher susceptibility of their child to experience cyberbullying and they also reported positive behavioral intentions to communicate with their children about the three recommendations suggested in the presentation. This study’s findings suggest that parental cyberbullying prevention interventions in middle schools can impact parents’ short-term attitudes and intentions. This intervention model can be utilized to educate parents about their children’s risks about cyberbullying and how to talk to their children to reduce cyberbullying in middle schools.