Abstract—Few published studies measure electronic (cyber)
bullying in conjunction with traditional (i.e., verbal, physical,
and relational) forms of bullying, with even fewer using multiple
items to measure the constructs. These two shortcomings have
resulted in decades of inconsistent findings, uncertainty amongst
experts about the structure of bullying, and no universally
accepted measures to examine it. This study addresses these
concerns by developing a new measure of victimization and
examining its construct validity in a sample of 399 ninth-grade
students. Exploratory Factor Analysis provides strong evidence
that victimization is indeed multifaceted with cyber
victimization emerging as a separate factor, distinct from
school-based forms. Although, physical and verbal victimization
items cross-loaded to form a single factor (labeled direct
victimization), relational victimization emerged as a separate
factor, distinct from cyber and direct victimization. Implications
and limitations of these findings are discussed, along with how
continued development of such measures may aid educational
psychologists who work with victimized students regularly.
Index Terms—Bullying, cyber bullying, direct bullying,
relational bullying, victimization, construct validity.
Anthony C. Betancourt is with the City University of New York, USA
(e-mail: abetancourt@gc.cuny.edu).
Cite: Anthony C. Betancourt, "Do Cyber Victimization and Traditional Victimization Form Separate Factors? Evidence from a Preliminary Study," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 296-300, 2016.