Examination of the Relationship Between the Virtual Bullying Awareness Levels and Communication Skills of Primary School Teachers

Cyberbullying is by an individual or a group by using resources such as e-mail, smart phone, pagers, short message services (SMS) and websites, Information and Communication technologies in order to harm a person; intentional, repetitive hostile behavior. When the literature is examined; it is seen that cyberbullying behaviors are carried out with the aim of intentionally harming, peer pressure, negative family-friendship relations, aggression, taking revenge for harming, and making the target person do an action that they do not want to do. According to the results of a study in which the percentage of performing cyberbullying behaviors was determined; According to the results of the study conducted with 160 adolescents between the ages of 14-18 in Türkiye; it has been determined that the rate of exposure to cyberbullying of young people is 83% and the severity of this rate is emphasized. When the negative effects of cyberbullying on the psychology of individuals, especially young people, are examined in the long term, depression and depression, fear and/or embarrassment of people, a constantly warned state, avoiding virtual environments and technology, avoiding responsibility, use of addictive harmful substances, negative behaviors such as being away from school draw attention. Communicating with other stakeholders in education (such as school administrators, class-branch teachers, guidance teachers, families) in order to prevent children and/or young people from being exposed to the stated negative effects of cyberbullying and in this context, it is foreseen that the collaborative work to be carried out between the stakeholders can be important and effective in terms of problem solving. Awareness behaviors such as supporting students to receive safe education in an academic sense, encouraging children and young people to use the internet safely, controlling the sites and shares that children visit, and drawing attention to abnormal and aggressive behaviors they display while using technology will support the prevention of cyberbullying. In this context, determining the cyberbullying awareness levels of the specified stakeholders and organizing trainings by the relevant institutions and organizations within the scope of the findings will contribute to raising the awareness of the stakeholders on this issue. In the light of all these, the aim of this study is to determine the cyberbullying awareness levels of primary school teachers and to associate it with the dependent variable of communication skills proficiency levels. In order to serve this purpose, research was conducted with a total of 154 teachers working in primary schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Kars Türkiye. As a method in the research, mix method was used and the findings related to various statistical tests were revealed. It is predicted that the findings obtained in the study will contribute to the literature and researchers in order to raise awareness of cyberbullying to education stakeholders.