Prevalence of Cyberbullying among Traditional Undergraduate Students Attending Faith-Based Universities: A Causal-Comparative Study

Cyberbullying among traditional undergraduate students is a relatively new issue that involves the safety of postsecondary students. The purpose of this study was to provide statistical data to faith-based universities that relate the prevalence of cyberbullying victimization experiences and the prevalence of cyberbullying offending experiences of traditional undergraduate students to biological gender (female/male) and level of religiosity (higher/lower), and to add to the small body of research conducted among this demographic. In this quantitative, causal-comparative study, traditional undergraduate students were recruited from two faith-based universities in the southern United States. Level of religiosity and cyberbullying prevalence were determined through responses to an anonymous, online survey using the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) and the Cyberbullying and Online Aggression Survey (COAS), respectively. The researcher utilized two separate two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to analyze the data. The study had 284 participants that included 180 female students and 104 male students. Findings indicated that gender and level of religiosity did not have a significant effect on the prevalence of cyberbullying experiences scores among traditional undergraduate students attending faith-based universities. The results contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the prevalence of cyberbullying experiences among university students. Future research on the prevalence of cyberbullying experiences among university students could include comparing secular and faith-based universities and investigating cyberbullying prevalence at faith-based universities in different parts of the United States