Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Cyberbullying

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    WOMEN’S CYBERBULLYING EXPERIENCES AND THE RELATIONSHIP TO SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE DISCUSSIONS
    (2020) Byrne, Virginia L; Ketelhut, Diane J; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    In response to negative experiences like cyberbullying and online harassment, women have been found to chill their online participation by adopting defensive coping strategies in person and on social media (e.g., deleting their accounts, avoiding posting, increasing privacy settings). Cyberbullying affects the majority of undergraduate women, contributing to withdrawal from social media and chilling their participation in the growing world of collaborative online discussions. In this mixed-methods, three-article dissertation, I integrate surveys, observations, and interviews among undergraduate students (particularly women) to investigate how the chilling effect of cyberbullying extends into peer interactions within an increasingly common online instructional practice: online discussion boards. I observe that, in comparison to their non-victimized peers, women with prior cyberbullying experiences enact lower social presence and adopt self-silencing and conflict-avoidant coping strategies. In particular, these women avoid ever disagreeing with peers out of fear of starting “drama.” My research challenges educators to consider potential unintended consequences of instructional design choices and contributes to our understanding of how to design more equitable online learning environments for today’s socially networked adult learners.
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    A Qualitative Analysis of Middle School Administrators' Perceptions of Cyberbullying
    (2018) Moore, Danielle Hart; Timmons-Brown, Stephanie; McLaughlin, Margaret J; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    ABSTRACT Title of Document: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS’ PERCEPTIONS OF CYBERBULLYING Danielle Moore, Doctor of Education, 2018 Directed by: Dr. Stephanie Timmons-Brown, College of Education With the increase in students’ use of technology—and subsequently social media, email, and texting—schools have seen a marked increase in instances of cyberbullying. The aim of this study was to explore six middle schools’ implementation of a district cyberbullying policy in one school system. Each of the six schools had documented incidents of cyberbullying in the most recent schools years. The researcher collected data, through one-on-one interviews with principals and administrative designees who managed student cyberbullying incidents, in order to address the following research questions: (1) How do administrators approach and process cyberbullying incidents? (2) What are administrators’ perceptions of how cyberbullying impacts the learning environment? (3) What strategies have middle school administrators employed to reduce cyberbullying incidents? The participants noted that cyberbullying negatively affected the learning environment for schools, created unsafe spaces that impeded student learning, and monopolized the time of administrators. Most notably, the results indicate that although schools address incidents of cyberbullying with the district policy in mind, they do not always document or report the incidents to district leaders, as the policy requires. As a result, the district may be unknowingly underreporting cyberbullying incidents to the state. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended that the school district consider streamlining the process by which school administrators document cyberbullying investigations and results, strengthen efforts to educate parents about how to monitor their students’ social media use, and provide middle schools with research-based prevention programs to support their efforts to address cyberbullying.