Coping with Cyberbullying Questionnaire (CWCBQ)

Abstract

The Coping with Cyberbullying Questionnaire (CWCBQ) is a specialized psychometric instrument designed to assess the diverse behavioral and cognitive strategies employed by youth when they experience cyber victimization. Developed by Sticca, Machmutow, Stauber, and Perren (2015), this 36-item questionnaire offers a robust measure of seven distinct coping dimensions, ranging from proactive technical measures and seeking social support to passive avoidance and aggressive retaliation. The CWCBQ moves beyond traditional bullying coping scales by incorporating responses specific to the digital environment, providing researchers and practitioners with a nuanced understanding of how adolescents manage online harassment.

Keywords

Coping with Cyberbullying Questionnaire, CWCBQ, Coping strategies, Cyber victimization, Adolescence, Online harassment, Psychometric assessment, Bullying.

Authors

Fabio Sticca, Katja Machmutow, Ariane Stauber, Sonja Perren, et al.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the CWCBQ is to systematically identify and measure the specific range of responses adolescents utilize when faced with cyberbullying incidents. This scale addresses a critical gap in the literature by focusing exclusively on coping mechanisms relevant to the unique challenges posed by digital harassment, such as anonymity, widespread audience, and the permanence of online content.

By categorizing responses into distinct factors, the CWCBQ allows for the evaluation of both adaptive (e.g., seeking help, technical blocking) and maladaptive (e.g., self-blame, retaliation) strategies. This detailed assessment is vital for developing targeted prevention programs and intervention strategies aimed at enhancing resilience among victims of online abuse.

Construct

The CWCBQ measures the psychological construct of coping specific to the context of cyberbullying. The construct is multidimensional, encompassing behavioral actions, cognitive appraisals, and emotional reactions to cyber victimization. It is structured around seven empirically derived coping factors:

• Distal Advice: Seeking help from formal or distant sources (e.g., police, helplines, teachers).
• Close Support: Seeking emotional or practical help from trusted peers or family members.
• Retaliation: Engaging in aggressive counter-attacks, either online or offline.
• Assertiveness: Directly confronting the bully in a non-aggressive, commanding manner.
• Active Ignoring: Consciously avoiding the bully or pretending the incident does not cause distress.
• Helplessness/Self-blame: Internalizing the incident, feeling despair, or attributing fault to oneself.
• Technical Coping: Utilizing digital tools or privacy settings to manage or document the harassment (e.g., blocking, changing details, saving evidence).

Validity

The development of the CWCBQ involved rigorous procedures to ensure strong construct and content validity. Initial item generation was based on extensive qualitative data collected from adolescents, ensuring that the items genuinely reflect real-world coping behaviors specific to the digital realm. The scale demonstrates high structural validity, confirmed through Factor Analysis, which supported the hypothesized seven-factor structure.

Further validation studies have established the scale’s divergent and convergent validity by correlating the CWCBQ subscales with measures of general coping styles, psychological distress, and known cyberbullying involvement. For instance, factors like Helplessness/Self-blame typically correlate positively with negative psychological outcomes, while factors like Close Support correlate positively with resilience.

Reliability

The CWCBQ has demonstrated acceptable to high levels of internal consistency across its seven subscales, indicating that the items within each factor reliably measure the same underlying coping strategy. The primary measure of reliability utilized is Cronbach’s alpha, which typically meets or exceeds the conventional standard of 0.70 for newly developed psychological scales.

Test-retest reliability is also a crucial aspect, confirming the stability of the coping measures over time, particularly important given the dynamic nature of online interactions. The consistent psychometric properties across studies confirm the CWCBQ’s utility as a dependable tool for measuring cyberbullying coping strategies in research and clinical settings.

Factor Analysis

The structure of the CWCBQ was established using robust statistical methods, primarily Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA/EFA). This analysis confirmed that the 36 items load cleanly onto seven distinct, yet correlated, factors. This seven-factor model provided the best fit for the data collected from the target population.

The factors identified—Distal Advice, Close Support, Retaliation, Assertiveness, Active Ignoring, Helplessness/Self-blame, and Technical Coping—represent a comprehensive taxonomy of responses to cyber victimization. The clear factor structure enhances the scale’s interpretability, allowing researchers to examine specific coping profiles rather than relying on a single overall score.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire

Format: 36 items rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale (1 Definitely Not, 2 Probably Not, 3 Probably, 4 Definitely Yes), with an additional option (5 No Answer).

Language Available: Developed and validated in German, typically translated into English and other languages for international research.

Population Group: Youth and Adolescence

Age Group: Typically utilized with secondary school students (adolescents), generally ranging from 12 to 18 years.

Population Details: The scale was validated using large samples of adolescents who had experienced cyber victimization.

Test Methodology: Respondents are asked to consider a hypothetical or actual cyberbullying situation and indicate how likely they would be to perform each listed coping behavior. The scale specifically asks two initial questions: “Did you ever experience something like that? (Yes/No)” and “What would you do in this situation? ‘I would…’”

Keywords

Psychological assessment, Digital media, Victimization, Resilience, Cyberbullying prevention, Coping strategies, Adolescent psychology.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not consistently provided in the source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not consistently provided in the source material.

Correspondence Address: Information not consistently provided in the source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed and published in 2015. Details regarding permissions and licensing fees should be sought directly from the primary authors (Sticca, Perren) or the publishing journal, Societies. The original research publication, which includes the full instrument details, is open access and can be found at the journal website: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/5/2/515.

Reference’s

• Sticca, F., Perren, S. (2013). Is cyberbullying worse than traditional bullying? Examining the differential roles of medium, publicity, and anonymity for the perceived severity of bullying. J. Youth Adolesc, 42, 739–750.
• Sticca, F., Ruggieri, S., Alsaker, F., Perren, S. (2013). Longitudinal risk factors for cyberbullying in adolescence. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol, 23, 52–67.
• Sticca, Fabio., Machmutow, Katja., Stauber, Ariane., Perren, Sonja., et al (2015). The Coping with Cyberbullying Questionnaire: Development of a New Measure. Societies, 5(2), 515–536; doi:10.3390/soc5020515. The instrument can be found here: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/5/2/515 & http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/5/2/515/htm.

Items of the Coping with Cyberbullying Questionnaire (CWCBQ)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Did you ever experience something like that? (Yes/No)

What would you do in this situation? “I would…”

1. report the incident to the website owner or to the telephone company (e.g.‚ YouTube)
2. go to the police
3. change my contact details (phone number‚ email address‚ chat name‚ profile on social networking sites)
4. be totally desperate
5. write mean and threatening things to the bully
6. avoid any further contact with the bully
7. seek advice on an online platform
8. go to someone who listens to me and comforts me
9. tell the bully to stop it
10. keep out of the bully’s way
11. spend time with my friends to take my mind off it
12. think that it is my fault
13. pretend that it does not bother me at all
14. talk to my friends about it
15. accept the situation as it is because there is nothing you can do to stop bullying
16. tell the bully that this is not ok at all
17. inform a teacher or the principal
18. get back at the bully in the real world (offline‚ e.g.‚ at school)
19. ignore all messages/pictures so that the bully would lose interest
20. ask myself why this is happening exactly to me
21. not know what to do
22. tell the bully that I don’t think this is funny at all
23. seek professional advice
24. pay more attention to who has access to my data
25. tell the bully that his behaviour is hurting me
26. get back at the bully personally
27. go to someone who accepts me the way I am
28. block the bully to prevent him from contacting me again
29. get back at the bully together with my friends
30. try not to think about it
31. post less personal information on the Internet
32. call a helpline (e.g. Kids Helpline‚ CyberBullyHotline)
33. get back at the bully in cyber space (online‚ e.g.‚ text message‚ email)
34. ask the bully why he/she is doing this
35. go to someone I can trust
36. save messages/pictures as evidence (e.g.‚ copies or screenshots)

Scoring and Factor Structure:

Response Scale: 1 Definitely Not‚ 2 Probably Not‚ 3 Probably‚ 4 Definitely Yes‚ 5 No Answer

• Distal Advice (2‚ 7‚ 17‚ 23‚ 32)
• Close Support (8‚ 11‚ 14‚ 27‚ 35)
• Retaliation (5‚ 18‚ 26‚ 29‚ 33)
• Assertiveness (9‚ 16‚ 22‚ 25‚ 34)
• Active Ignoring (6‚ 10‚ 13‚ 19‚ 30)
• Helplessness/Self-blame (4‚ 12‚ 15‚ 20‚ 21)
• Technical Coping (1‚ 3‚ 24‚ 28‚ 31‚ 36)