A comparison of pre-service teachers’ responses to cyber versus traditional bullying scenarios: similarities and differences and implications for practice

Abstract

Prior studies indicate that teachers differ in how they respond to different kinds of traditional bullying, and that their beliefs predict their intervention intentions. The current study provided the first extension of this work into the realm of cyber bullying. Preservice teachers in the United Kingdom (N = 222) were presented with vignettes describing three subtypes of traditional bullying as well as cyber bullying, and the latter was directly compared with the former. Dependent variables were perceived seriousness, ability to cope, empathy, and intentions to intervene. Results showed that responses to cyber bullying were most similar to verbal traditional bullying, but distinct from physical and relational traditional bullying. For cyber bullying, willingness to intervene was significantly predicted from the other three dependent variables (collectively and each one uniquely). No gender differences were observed. The implications of the results concerning how teacher educators could help teachers to deal with cyber bullying were discussed