Coping Mechanism of Junior Maritime Student’s when dealing with Bullying

About the Author

Lomod, Gem Ryan, is a master’s degree student at Cebu Normal University and a license
psychometrician at PMI Colleges. He has 5 months of experience in tertiary education, including
2 years of experience as a guidance advocate in the same institution. He is interested reading
articles related to delay gratification, love and human behavior.

Abstract
The current issue of bullying is undeniably existing across nations, cultures and schools. Bullying
is well-defined as physical or verbal aggression that is repeated over a period of time. Additionally,
coping mechanism are ways to which external or internal stress is managed and adapted.
Bullying is a major cause of stress and can leave anyone feeling hurt, angry, frightened, and even
depressed. Since bullying is an existing issue within schools today this study will examines the
coping mechanism of student’s when dealing with bullying. Participants were 196 junior maritime
students from randomly selected classes. In the middle of midterm and final semester,
participants were given with group interview questions on coping mechanism when dealing with
bullying. The finding will help the researcher to identify, explain and learn the current coping
mechanism strategies applied by the student when they are being bullied. Since victims of bullying
has the greater risk of developing mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and low
self- esteem this research study will help in developing a program to prevent the risks mentioned
above.

Keywords:
Coping mechanism, Bullying, junior maritime student’s
 Coping Mechanism of Junior Maritime Student’s when dealing with Bullying
Gem Ryan Lomod, RPm
PMI Colleges
pmigdcbhl@gmail.com
09050613732

The current issue of bullying is There is an imbalance of strength,

undeniably existing across nations,
cultures and schools. Bullying is well-
defined as physical or verbal aggression
that is repeated over a period of time.
Additionally, coping mechanism are ways
to which external or internal stress is
managed and adapted. Bullying is a
major cause of stress and can leave
anyone feeling hurt, angry, frightened,
and even depressed. Since bullying is an
existing issue within schools today this
study will examines the coping
mechanism of student’s when dealing
with bullying. Participants were 196 junior
maritime students that is randomly
selected. In the middle of midterm and
final semester, participants were given
with interview questioners on coping
mechanism when dealing with bullying.
The finding will help the researcher to
identify, explain and learn the current
coping mechanism strategies applied by
the student when they are being bullied.
Since victims of bullying has the greater
risk of developing mental health
problems such as depression, anxiety,
and low self- esteem this research study
will help in developing a program to
prevent the risks mentioned above.
Keywords: Coping mechanism, Bullying,
junior maritime students
INTRODUCTION
Bullying is a form of aggressive
behavior that is intentional, hurtful or
threatening, and persistent. This aggression
can be physical or psychological, and it is
repeated.
allowing one student power and dominance
over the other student. The line between
friendly teasing and bullying is when the bully
intends to harm, intends to create fear, and
intends to keep repeating the behavior. He is
delighted with the power of intimidating
another lesser-powered student.
When the situation is one that
involves teasing, both students come to the
situation with the same power or sense of
ability. They banter about an issue and laugh
at the outcome. When the abuse becomes
malevolent, the situation changes into
bullying.
Bullying is unfair and one-sided. It
leaves the victim feeling hurt, frightened,
threatened, left out on purpose. Bullies target
their victims. They want power, so they look
for and target students who are smaller,
younger, or less adept. They seek out those
who display a lack of self-confidence (Teach,
2018, p. 22).
On the other hand, coping
mechanism scientifically defined as the sum
of cognitive and behavioral efforts, which are
constantly changing, that aim to handle
particular demands, whether internal or
external, that are viewed as taxing or
demanding.
Simply put, coping mechanism is an
activity an individual do to seek and apply
solutions to stressful situations or problems
(Sincero, 2012).
In connection with this, most of the
student of maritime institution where male
students and the tendency of bullying is
recognize. Since the imbalance of
dominating behavior is prevalent for male
students within the school setting. Identifying
the essential coping mechanism skill will help
the student to adjust when they encountered
bullying at school grounds in which therefore
worth a study.
In this study the researcher identify
the possible coping mechanism of junior
maritime students when dealing with bullying
at PMI Colleges.
METHODOLOGY
This study relied on group interview
of randomly selected junior maritime classes.
First, the Junior 1 Charlie- J1C with 40
students. Second, the Junior 1 Golf- J1G with
39 students. Third, the Junior 1 Romeo- J1R
with 40 students. Fourth, the Junior 1 Oscar
1- J1O with 39 students. Last, the Junior 1
Mike Hotel- J1MH with 38 students with a
totality of 196 students. The researcher meet
the different classes according to availability
and divide the class into small groups with 5-
7 members. All classes was enrolled in the
first semester of the academic year 2018-
2019.
The researcher recently interviewed
these group of students on the matter of
bullying experience and their coping
mechanism on dealing with it.
DISCUSSION
From the gathered answer during the
group interview, the answers to the specific
problems in the study were derived.
A. The Coping Mechanism by Junior
Maritime Students when Dealing with
Bullying
a. Ignoring the bullies
(Dili nalang nako sila tagdon. .)
The most common coping mechanism
applied by students was a standard advice
given by their parents to ignore their bullies
and they will eventually go away. But this
advice in the long run doesn’t work. It may
actually make the problem worse.
Because when bullies say mean things
to people and insult them. Students take their
verbal insults personally. And students let
mean people determine their self-worth.
Ignoring the bully doesn’t help to stop
bullying (Hancock, 2015).
b. Skipping classes
(Mu absent nalng ko. .)
Students who reported being frequently
exposed to bullying also reported a weaker
sense of belonging at school hence skipped
their classes and reported that has less
satisfaction with life. Students who are
frequently bullied are also more likely to be
absentee (OECD 2017).
c. Fighting back
Musukol gyud ko. .
Fighting back out of anger and being
upset hinders the development of the
student’s self- esteem, self- worth and self-
confidence. Since bullying is an imbalance of
power and the bully tries to have power over
you. Fighting back out of anger and being
upset will make the bully win. The more upset
and angry you get the more fun they have
(Gibbs, 2014).
d. Self-Silencing
(Muhilom nalang ko. .)
Self-silencing in men is ascribed to a
universal adherence to masculine ideals (de
Medeiros & Rubinstein, 2015). Men report
higher self-reliance than women (Besser et
al., 2003), and intentionally isolate
themselves from those around them in order
to appear more stoic and stable (de Medeiros
& Rubinstein, 2015).
e. Seek social support
(Mudoul ko sa akong mmga amigo. .)
Seeking social support belongs
among these recommended coping
mechanism. Despite the fact that telling
someone else helped stop the bullying in
only about half of the cases, it was still
among the most effective strategies in this
regard, and it also contributed significantly to
emotional coping. It seems that even though
other people may not have the means to
solve the situation, they are a rich source of
emotional support (Price & Dalgleish, 2010).
ANALYSIS
In a related study conducted by Slee
and Murray-Harvey (2008) they examined
experts’ views on the effectiveness of coping
strategies found that items rated by the
experts as effective and ineffective strongly
aligned with a ‘problem versus emotion’
focused approach.
Coping mechanism that was
consistent with direct action/approach coping
, such as ‘talk to a school counsellor’ and ‘get
support from others’, was rated by the
experts as effective, while coping
mechanism that was primarily emotion-
focused, such as ‘see myself at fault’ and
‘wish for a miracle’, was generally rated as
ineffective by the experts.
In connection with the result of the
group interview, junior maritime students has
the tendency to primarily focus on emotion
focus coping mechanism: Ignoring the bully,
skipping classes, fighting back and self-
silencing which further as mention above
was generally rated as ineffective.
On the other hand seeking social
support was an example of direct action/
approach coping in which rated by the
experts as effecting coping mechanism.
Eventually this is a recurring element
in many anti-bullying programs is
encouraging victims to tell someone (Cornell
& Williams, 2006). This is the coping strategy
that not only trainee teachers most strongly
identified with and would recommend to
students (Nicolaides et. al, 2002) but it was
also identified as well by experts as a
preferred strategy (Slee, 2008).
In addition to this, victims are also
encouraged to speak to their parents or
caregivers, and in some schools, peer
support systems have been developed to
counsel or advise other pupils (Terranova,
2009).
CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the study,
the followings conclusions were drawn:
 On identified coping mechanisms:
Junior maritime students had the
greater tendency to ignore the bullies
when bullying takes place.
 Ignoring the bullies, skipping classes,
fighting back and self-silencing are
the coping mechanism mostly
practice by the junior maritime
students.
 Junior maritime students has the
tendency to primarily focus on
emotion focus coping mechanism:
Ignoring the bully, skipping classes,
fighting back and self-silencing which
was generally rated as ineffective.
 Seeking social support was the least
practice coping mechanism by the
junior maritime students
 Seeking social support was rated as
an effective coping mechanism by
experts.
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