Cyberbullying-Victimization Overlap Among Chinese University Students: Does Network Structure Matter?

2021 ◽  
pp. 001112872110578
Author(s):  
Tzu-Hsuan Liu ◽  
Zhihao Ma ◽  
Yiwei Xia

With widespread internet and social media use among youngsters, cyberbullying has emerged as a novel form of bullying. According to the routine activity and lifestyle theories, cyberbullying and victimization overlap significantly. However, the nature and mechanism of the overlap is not yet adequately understood. This study contributes to extant literature by investigating the role of network structure in cyberbullying-victimization overlap. Participants included 520 residential students from a single department of a Chinese university. This study applied prevalent, bivariate, and social network approach to investigate the overlap. Linear regressions with interactive terms are applied to investigate the moderating effect of network structure. First, the results revealed that the overlap phenomenon is robust against different approaches. Second, the findings demonstrated that indegree significantly moderates the effect of victimization on the perpetration of cyberbullying. Third, for betweenness and closeness, neither direct effect nor moderating effect, is statistically significant. Overall, cyberbullying-victimization overlaps among surveyed Chinese university students and social network may moderate the relationship between cyberbullying and victimization.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Li ◽  
Guang-Xiao Li ◽  
Ming-Li Yu ◽  
Chun-Li Liu ◽  
Yun-Ting Qu ◽  
...  

Problematic smartphone use (PSU) is a novel manifestation of addictive behaviors. It is frequently reported to be correlated with anxiety symptoms among University students. However, the underlying mechanism has not yet been thoroughly studied. Whether the association between anxiety symptoms and PSU is mediated or moderated by self-efficacy remains unclarified. A cluster sampling cross-sectional study was thus conducted to explore the potential mediating or moderating effect of self-efficacy in Chinese University students. Participants (N = 1,113) were recruited from eight Universities in Shenyang, China. Of them, 146 did not effectively respond to the questionnaires. Thus, 967 participants were eligible for the final analysis. The mediating or moderating role of self-efficacy in the anxiety-PSU relationship was explored using hierarchical multiple regression. Then the mediation model was further verified using the SPSS macros program (PROCESS v3.0). Our results showed that anxiety symptoms was positively correlated with PSU (r = 0.302, P < 0.01), while self-efficacy was negatively correlated with anxiety symptoms and PSU (r = −0.271 and −0.181, P < 0.01). Self-efficacy partly mediated the relationship between anxiety symptoms and PSU, which accounted for ~17.5% of the total effect that anxiety symptoms have on PSU. However, the moderating effect of self-efficacy on the anxiety-PSU relationship was insignificant. In summary, our findings suggested that self-efficacy partly mediates but not moderates the link between anxiety symptoms and PSU among Chinese University students. Therefore, multicomponent interventions should be made to restrict the frequency of smartphone usage, enhance the level of self-efficacy, and thus promote the mental health status of University students.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 86-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Wang

Abstract This paper sets out to investigate Chinese university students’ ELF awareness, which is conceptualised with regards to language education. The study, based on 24 semi-structured interviews, demonstrates that Chinese university students are still framing their understanding of English with the affiliation to idealised notions of monolingual origin of native English, despite being situated in a changing world where multilingual speakers of English are becoming the majority of English users and ELF is becoming a prominent communicative phenomenon. The participants’ account reveals the role of language education as the interface between language ideology and linguistic reality in China. Based on the study, this paper suggests ways of minimising the gap in ELF awareness. While this paper appreciates Chinese philosophy of education, the focus is on promoting awareness of English in relation to its sociocultural context and considering “imagined communities” in the learning so as to come to terms with sociolinguistic reality.


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