Bullying Scale Development for Higher Education Students: North Cyprus Case

ABSTRACT: Bullying has been investigated since the 1970s and currently it is examined in the views of bully, victims and bystanders. Bullying is a concept mostly considered with younger ages such as children and adolescents. Mobbing, bullying at workplace, is another concept that deals with bullying at workplaces of adults. However, bullying in higher education is not emphasized enough. Even though there is evidence which shows the prevalence of bullying behavior among university students, still yet there is no scale measuring bullying behaviors of university students. Having a valid and reliable scale should be the starting point for examining bullying at universities. It is undeniable that statistical results are helpful to raise awareness among all three parties who are university administration, staff and students. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap in the field as an attempt to design a scale that can be helpful to measure different aspects of bullying among university students in the North Cyprus context. In the first phase of the study, an instrument which deals with all aspects (bully, victim, bystander) of bullying among university students was developed. While developing the instrument, pilot studies were conducted. After each of the first two pilots, exploratory factor analyses were conducted. After the final (third) study, firstly exploratory and then confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. At the end, an instrument with three dimensions (bully, victim and bystander) was developed. Each dimension of the instrument has three subscales (cyber, verbal and emotional) which are examined with respect to how the university students differ in terms of the variables of gender, age, nationalities and faculties. The results of the study reveal that bullying exists in higher education, particularly in the case of North Cyprus context; thus, it is suggested to be taken into consideration seriously. Considering the gender and age of the participants, there is no statistically significant difference found, except for the 18-year-old bully students. Also, the results indicate statistically significant differences for the variables of nationalities and faculties with respect to all three bully, victim and bystander status of the participants. Consequently, similar studies are suggested to be conducted in higher education institutions in other contexts to see whether similar results will be obtained. Moreover, intervention programs can be advised particularly for the students who suffer from bullying in order to avoid the negative effects in the long term. Keywords: scale development, bullying, age, gender, faculty, country, factor analysis. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………