Date of Conferral

2019

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Human Services

Advisor

Tracey M. Phillips

Abstract

Cyberbullying continues to be a rising problem facing many households. As teenagers are the primary victims of cyberbullying, it is ultimately up to victims' parents to mediate and address cyberbullying incidents. The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to explore the lived experiences of parents who had addressed and/or mediated an incident following their adolescent's cyberbullying victimization. Bandura's self-efficacy theory was the theoretical framework that guided this study. Participants were recruited using purposeful sampling. Individual semistructured telephone interviews were held with 9 participants who were parents of adolescent cyberbullying victims. Themes were generated and data were analyzed using Colaizzi's method of descriptive data analysis. This analysis involved a multistep process to inductively develop themes from participant responses. Findings revealed that participants experienced negative emotions as a result of their teens' victimization. Results further revealed that despite a lack of preparedness, participants found their efforts to intervene in the cyberbullying incident to be effective. Themes emerging from the study highlight participants' desire to raise awareness regarding cyberbullying. The impacts that the cyberbullying incident had on the parent-adolescent relationship were also documented in this study. This study provided an opportunity for participants to share their perceived self-efficacy in responding to incidents of adolescent cyberbullying. Findings from this study may be used to promote positive social change by informing various professionals of the challenges that parents face in addressing cyberbullying incidents.

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