Students’ and Teachers’ Perception of Cyberbullying and Its Influence on the Academic Grit of Senior Secondary School Students in Onitsha South LGA, Anambra State

Abstract

Aims: This study examined the perception of students and teachers on cyber-bullying and the influence of cyber bullying on students’ academic grit. Design: A mixed method research design was adopted for the study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out in Onitsha South Local Government Area, Anambra State, Nigeria. The research was conducted between 2021 and early 2022. Methodology: A sample of 280 senior secondary school students and 120 teachers from secondary schools students were selected using purposive and simple random sampling respectively. Three instruments titled; Students Cyberbullying Awareness Questionnaire (SCAQ); Teachers’ Perception of Cyberbullying Questionnaire (TPCQ); School Cyberbullying Eradication Questionnaire (SCEQ), were developed by the researchers to elicit responses from the respondents (students and teachers), while the School Grit Scale developed by Duckworth and Quinn (2009) was also adapted to measure students’ academic grit. Reliability of the instrument was computed using the Cronbach Alpha technique. Questionnaires were distributed to 50 students and 30 teachers outside the study area. Reliability coefficient scores of 0.81, 0.79, 0.78, and 0.83 were realized for the SCAQ, TPCQ, SCEQ and the adapted version of the Short Grit Scale, respectively. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation, and dependent t-test statistics. Results: It was found among others that students and teachers are aware of the incidence of cyberbullying in our schools. Also, the researchers found that cyberbullying had significant influence on academic grit of students.