Prevention 2.0: targeting cyberbullying @ school

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Education
• Media Studies

Background:

• Cyberbullying is prevalent among adolescents and has severe negative consequences.
• Existing preventive strategies often lack scientific evaluation.
• There is a critical need for evidence-based cyberbullying prevention programs in schools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate the effectiveness of the theory-based cyberbullying prevention program "Media Heroes" (Medienhelden).
• To assess the program's impact on cyberbullying behavior in middle school students.
• To provide an empirically validated intervention for school-based cyberbullying prevention.

Main Methods:

• A pretest-posttest design with a 9-month interval was employed.
• 35 middle school classes (593 students, mean age 13.3 years, 53% girls) were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups.
• Multilevel analyses were used to analyze longitudinal data on cyberbullying and psychosocial variables.

Main Results:

• The study confirmed high prevalence rates of cyberbullying in middle school.
• Multilevel analyses demonstrated a significant reduction in cyberbullying behavior in classes that participated in the "Media Heroes" program compared to control groups.
• The intervention group showed a statistically significant decrease in cyberbullying incidents.

Conclusions:

• The "Media Heroes" program is an effective, theory-based intervention for preventing cyberbullying in schools.
• The study provides strong evidence for the program's efficacy in reducing cyberbullying behavior.
• This research offers a promising, empirically validated solution for schools addressing cyberbullying.