Are cyberbullying intervention and prevention programs effective? A systematic and meta-analytical review

Publication date: Available online 26 July 2018Source: Aggression and Violent BehaviorAuthor(s): Hannah Gaffney, David P. Farrington, Dorothy L. Espelage, Maria M. TtofiAbstractThis paper presents the results from a systematic and meta-analytical review of the effectiveness of cyberbullying intervention and prevention programs. Systematic searches were conducted for published and unpublished studies from 2000 to end 2017 on several online databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, PsychINFO, PsychARTICLES, Google Scholar, DARE, and ERIC. In addition, specific journals, for example, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking and Computers in Human Behavior, were hand searched for relevant studies. In total, 192 studies were retained for further screening from nearly 4000 search results. To be included in the present systematic review, studies had to: (1) include an adequate operational definition of cyberbullying; (2) describe the evaluation of an intervention or prevention program implemented with school-aged participants; (3) Employ experimental and control conditions; (4) Measure cyber-bullying behaviors using quantitative measurement instruments; and (5) have been published from 2000 onwards.Following rigorous screening, 24 publications were included in our systematic review. The majority of these studies (n = 15) used randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate anti-cyberbullying programs, while the remaining studies used quasi-experimental designs with be...
Source: Aggression and Violent Behavior - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research