Cyberbullying assessment instruments: a systematic review

Abstract

Although several instruments to assess cyberbullying have been developed, there is nevertheless a lack of knowledge about their psychometric properties. The aim of the present systematic review is to provide a representative overview of the current instruments designed to assess cyberbullying. Further, emphasis will be placed on the structural and psychometric properties of cyberbullying instruments, such as validity and reliability, as well as their conceptual and definitional bases. It will also provide criteria for readers to evaluate and choose instruments according to their own aims. A systematic literature review, limited to publications published prior to October 2010, generated 636 citations. A total of 61 publications fulfilled the delineated selection criteria and were included in the review, resulting in 44 instruments. Following a rater training, relevant information was coded by using a structured coding manual. The raters were the nine authors of this review. Almost half of the instruments included in this review do not use the concept of cyberbullying. The constructs measured by the instruments range from internet harassment behavior to electronic bullying behavior to cyberbullying. Even though many of the authors use other concepts than cyberbullying they claim that their instruments do measure it. For the purpose of this systematic review, we have chosen to categorize them as two different groups, cyberbullying instruments and related instruments. Additionally, most of the included instruments had limited reports of reliability and validity testing. The systematic review reveals a need for investigating the validity and reliability of most of the existing instruments, and resolving the conceptual and definitional fluctuations related to cyberbullying.