This study explored cyberbullying and cybervictimization (CBCV), for adolescents aged 11-15 from Tanzania (N = 426) and Canada (N = 592). Measurement invariance and model invariance was found for CBCV. In addition, multigroup structural equation modeling was used to explore several variables: age, gender, average hours online each day, accessing the Internet in a private location, having online privacy concerns, going online for social purposes, and motivation for cyberbullying. Results found interesting patterns within each country. It was found that cellphone ownership moderated the relation between these predictor variables and reported incidences of CBCV uniquely for each country. These findings provide evidence for the global nature of cyberbullying.

This study explored undergraduate student teachers experiences on psychosocial stressors, how they resolve the stressors, and the level of utilization of college help or support resources. A self-report questionnaire was administered to a total of 187 first year, second year and third year student teachers (M=25 & SD=3.38) from Dar es Salaam University College of Education, Tanzania. Regardless of gender, student teachers reported to have had high level of stressful experiences to the extent of needing assistance. And the longer the students stay in the college the more stressful experiences they are likely to encounter. Although students would most often prefer face to face followed by making a telephone call in seeking for help, there is a low utilization of formal college help services such as counseling compared to the informal sources of help like fellow students. And a lack of awareness, ethical concerns, and cultural factors emerged as the major barriers to help-seeking from the formal college sources of help. The results of this study provide insight for developing a comprehensive and holistic intervention programs that could buffer students from stress and its associated maladies.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the measurement invariance of the School Connectedness Scale for Chinese, Canadian, and Tanzanian adolescents, and to explore the inter association between school connectedness and cyberbullying/cybervictimization. Participants included 3872 adolescents from urban settings in China ( N= 2053, M age=16.36 years, SD = 1.14 years; 44.6% boys), Canada ( N = 642, M age = 12.13 years, SD = 0.77 years; 50.1% boys), and Tanzania ( N = 1056 , M age=15.87 years, SD = 2.03 years; 52.8% boys). Adolescents self-reported their cybervictimization and cyberbullying experiences, as well as their perceived school connectedness. Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis revealed an approximate measurement invariance of the scale across the three countries. Chinese students showed the lowest levels of school connectedness while Tanzanian students showed the highest. The findings of the multivariate multigroup regression analyses across the three countries revealed similar relationships between school connectedness and cyberbullying/cybervictimization, thus broadening our understanding of school connectedness and its relationship to cyberbullying/cybervictimization across these three different countries.

Abstract. The current study aimed to test for measurement invariance of the Resistance to Peer Influence scale across samples of Chinese, Canadian, and Tanzanian. Participants included N = 3,771 students from four public schools in China ( N = 2,073, Mage = 16.36 years, SD = 1.14 years; 925 boys), from sixteen public schools in Canada ( N = 642, Mage = 12.13 years, SD = 0.78 years; 321 boys), and from four public schools in Tanzanian ( N = 1,056, Mage = 15.87 years, SD = 2.02 years; 558 boys). Students provided self-reports of resistance to peer influence. The results from multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and the alignment optimization method demonstrated that configural, metric, and partial scalar invariances of resistance to peer influence held across gender and all three countries. Chinese boys had the highest factor mean levels and Canadian boys had the lowest. The findings help us understand peer influence resistance across cultures and genders.

The goal of the present study was to examine developmental trajectories of online privacy concerns, as well as to identify predictive factors (e.g., cybervictimization, time spent online, and socializing online) related to online privacy concerns among early adolescents. Participants were 378 adolescents from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada who were in grade six and grade seven at wave 1 of the study (192 boys, M age = 13.93 years, SD = .72 year). Three years of longitudinal data on online privacy concerns, cybervictimization, and time spent online socializing were collected from self-report surveys. Results identified three different trajectories of online privacy concerns: decreasing (32.8%), increasing (44.98%), and stable (22.29%). Adolescents who reported higher scores on cyber victimization were more likely to be in the decreasing online privacy. Adolescents who spent more time socializing online were more likely to be in the stable or increasing subgroup. These findings highlight the important value of studying subgroups regarding the development course of online privacy concerns.