The impact of bullying on EFL students’ academic achievement at state Islamic universities in Indonesia

Issues and incidents of bullying may take place, regardless of time and place, notwithstanding at Islamic education institutions. This study is aimed at finding out types of bullying and their triggering factors taking place in the university classroom; examining steps taken by lecturers to anticipate and prevent classroom bullying; and analyzing the impact of bullying on EFL students‟ academic achievement. This mixedmethods study involved 546 students and 30 lecturers of the English Language Education Department at three state Islamic universities in Indonesia; Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, and Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry in Banda Aceh. Both surveys and interviews were employed to collect the required data. The findings elucidate that * Corresponding author Safrul Muluk, Habiburrahim Habiburrahim, Syarifah Dahliana, & Saiful Akmal Englisia: Journal of Language, Education, and Humanities | Vol.8, No.2, May 2021 | 121 physical, social, verbal, and racial are among the most common emergent bullying incidents the students experienced. Revealing the triggering factors of bullying, the data show that competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearances, lack of understanding of bullying meaning, and lack of regulation are pointed as the source of bullying. The findings also indicate that bullying influences students‟ academic achievement; bullying incidents have driven their victims into four pathetic conditions: less confident, stressed, anxious, and passive. Some steps are applied by the lecturer to prevent and handle bullying; they are: providing classroom regulation, being a counselor for students, enforcing the regulation, and massive socialization.


Introduction
The issue of bullying has become one of the most important areas attracting a lot of attention from stakeholders, such as the government, teachers, and communities, mainly because the effects of bullying behaviors might have on academic, social and emotional states of victims (Boulton et al., 2010). Incidents of physical and nonphysical violence involving students within educational environment have drawn considerable attention. The bullying actions, such as: mocking, teasing, fighting, disrespects others and so forth, often take place at school and universities. According to Olweus (2013), three characteristics that always exist in the act of bullying are: (1) intentional aggression, (2) a power imbalance between aggressor and victim, and (3) repetition of the aggressive behavior.
In the classroom context, bullying often goes unnoticed. Most students do not realize that their comments, jokes, and body language can sometimes be put into the category of bullying. In English as a foreign language classroom, the possibility of bullying behaviour can be said quite high as students need to learn and practice a new language, thus error and mistakes are common things that often occur during the teaching and learning process. This situation opens a space for bullying incidents.
Bullying can and does happen in any stages of life. It does not only exist in school settings, but also in Colleges or Universities vicinities (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2013). While the number of research on bullying at schools is abundant, academic works on the impact of bullying at Higher Education (HE) is limited (Coleyshaw, 2010), especially in the context of State Islamic universities. We believe that bullying at Indonesian Islamic universities are not new issues. Yet, most of the bullying incidents are not exposed to public society because of various reasons. With the expectation of exploring significant factors driving students to bully, this research is aimed at scrutinizing the problem of bullying and finding out types of bullying and their triggering factors taking place in the university classroom; examining steps taken by lecturers to anticipate and prevent classroom bullying; and analyzing the impact of bullying on EFL students" academic achievement. p.500). Beane (2005) also states that bullies think themselves as the winner and tend to blame others for their mistakes and are not accountable for their deeds. Bullies only have a few friends, and they are difficult to fit into other groups. Finally, bullies tend to abuse others to satisfy their willingness (Beane, 2005).

Effects of bullying
Bullying will affect bullies, victims, and bystanders in term of academic, physical, and emotional. It results in negative impacts on the students" opportunity to study safely at school (Shellard & Turner, 2004). Victims will be difficult to focus on their school projects and may result in poor academic performance. The impact of frequent bullying will stay long with victims into adulthood; it often leads to a higher risk of depression and other mental health problems (Shellard, 2002).
Bullying also gives negative effects on bullies. They are less popular in the school and are more likely to involve in crime. Bullies tend to develop antisocial behaviors, such as vandalism, shoplifting, skipping and dropping out of school, fighting, and doing drugs and alcohol (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2001).
Bullying similarly has an effect on bystanders. The witness are more likely to suffer depression, anxiety, anger, posttraumatic stress, alcohol use, and low scores (Shellard, 2002). Students who frequently witness bullying may afraid of being bullied in the future (Shellard & Turner, 2004).
Futhermore, classroom bullying may bring negative impact on students" academic performances (Mynard et al., 1996). Mynard et al. (1996) say that there is a positive relationship between victims of bullying and academic achievement. Many students fail to concentrate on their academic tasks because of the fear of being bullied. Classroom bullying also causes lack of social acceptance on victims resulting in negative impacts on a students" attendance. Mehta et al. (2013) assert that when students feel unsafe, and when they feel bullying takes place at their school, it will be likely that they have less motivation to participate in school activities. This has immediate and long term effects on students, which often affects students" performance.

Research design
To examine the problem of bullying in the context of Islamic Higher Education, researchers utilize mixed-method research design to explore in-depth understanding on the topic being researched. This research design is believed to help the researchers to obtain comprehensive information from participants on the issue under investigation.

Participants
The investigation on classroom bullying was conducted at three State Islamic Universities (UIN Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, UIN Syarief Hidayatullah, Jakarta, and UIN Ar-Raniry, Banda Aceh) under the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Survey questionnaires were distributed to EFL students at these three State Islamic universities in order to identify students experiencing bullying. The total of 546 students from the three universities (207 from UIN Ar-Raniry, 181 from UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, and 158 students from UIN Sunan Kalijaga) returned the questionnaires related to the issue under investigation. To understand the issue from lecturers" perspective, 30 EFL lecturers, ten from each university, were also selected as respondents; they were interviewed about bullying in university and the strategies they use to prevent bullying in the classroom. They participated voluntarily in this study. For ethical consideration, all participants are written as anonymous.

Data collection
To collect the data, interview technique was used. Several interview questions were given to reveal lecturers" understanding and experiences of classroom bullying, and their strategies to cope with the issue. Respondents were given the liberty to answer the questions in Indonesian if they cannot express their ideas in English. This is important to ensure their experiences are correctly articulated.
The interviews took approximately thirty to sixty minutes. To get comprehensive information in relation to the issues investigated, semi-structured interview was used in this study. Semi-structured interview allows participants to express their views in their own terms. It also enables researchers to acquire reliable, comparable qualitative data. Based on the participants" preferences, the interviews, which were conducted in English, were audio recorded. Research participants could also use Indonesian when they have trouble expressing their opinions in English.
To get the data on students" bullying experiences, a survey questionnaire was distributed to the students. The students had to answer thirty questions related to bullying experiences in university in form of Likert-scale questionnaire. From this questionnaire, the data about students" background and academic achievement were also noted.

Data analysis
To ensure the reliability of the study, the data from questionnaires were analyzed by using SPSS software in order to identify EFL students experiencing bullying. The interview data were partially transcribed; relevant data corresponding to the research questions were identified and irrelevant information were discarded. During the transcription process, the identification and abstraction of appropriate information, comments and suggestions were carried out carefully and systematically (Monette et al., 2010).
The data were coded after transcription based on emerging themes from the interviews. Classifying the data into specific group categories (Monette et al., 2010) was carried out to enable researcher to link it to theoretical framework and to produce a conceptual framework. Relevant information was then coded, by classifying the data into specific group categories, which then be analyzed by using open coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Common emerging themes were categorized, which were used to synthesize the data from interview. Research ethics related to the current research were obtained from the office of Centre for Research of UIN Ar-Raniry where the researchers work as lecturers.

Findings and discussion
Based on the survey and interview, some results can be revealed. These results are divided into several themes which relate to the aims of the study. The themes include common types of bully in the university, triggering factors of bullying, the impacts of bullying, and the lecturers" efforts in preventing and handling bully.

Types of bullying in the university
Based on the survey, the most common bullying type happens surrounding the Islamic higher education is physical, in which this bullying type takes the first position, followed by social related bullying actions. In the third position, racial bullying type is reported as the less common bullying actions happen at the three mentioned Islamic higher institutions. Verbal bullying place the fourth position. The table below shares significant information on types of bullying that students at three universities commonly face. Physical bullying usually happens outside classroom as the control of the lecturer or university is low. This bullying includes slapping, poking, kicking, and spitting. Sometimes, the students may only want to make a joke but the victims may think differently. One lecturer said:"I often find that some students kick or poke their friend when they are joking, but the victims may accept differently, they may not think that it si a joke, as each person is different" (UINSYA2-MK). Certain words and actions from peers may create an uncomfortable feeling for some students.
Meanwhile, verbal bullying is more common in the classroom during the teaching-learning process. One lecturer told her experience with one student who seems to be "special" in the class as everytime the lecturer calls his name or ask him to answer the questions, all his friend laugh and make a joke of him; the lecturer said: "I do not understand why, everytime I call him to answer the questions or do certain tasks, all his friends laugh" (UINSYA3-FN). The lecturer assumed that this students may have a particular backround that lead him to be the object of bullying; it could be his performance or accent.
Social and racial bullying can be experienced by the students inside and outside the classroom. One participant states: "I think social bullying is also one of the kinds, such as forming a so-called exclusive group; some calls it "gang" or "clicks", in the form of Western of Korea movie fans, or boarding school alumni group" (UINAR2-MA).
These "gangs" may have the same cultural background, socio-economic, and intellectual. One lecturer found that there is a group whose members are students with high intellectual competency. They often do activities together, inside and outside campus. This exclusive group leads other students who feel as "a standard student" will lack confidence to join.
In addition, as Indonesia is a very diverse country representing many different geographic, race and cultural differences ranging from Sabang in Aceh and Meurake in Papua then the possibility of racial bullying is quite high. In Jakarta, likewise, students are calling their fellow students from Java, especially East Javanese, with an invented label such as "You are Javanese, Jokau..." (UINSYA-DH). In Jogjakarta, the victims of racial slurs are mostly East Indonesian students, as explained by a participant stating that "The victims of race insult often the ones coming from Papua, Bima or NTT" (UINSU5).

Bullying triggering factors
Some factors are indicated as sources of bullying. These factors include competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearance, lack of understanding on bullying meaning, and lack of regulation.

Competition in academic and social life
One of the most persistent factors that trigger bullying in university classroom is intellectual jealousy. Some students are particularly worried about being left by classmates and teacher or neglected by parents once they appear to be intellectually incapable. There are times when intellectual jealousy among university students remains serious problems as part of normal sense of competitiveness. This is what exactly echoed by a lecturer at UIN Ar-Raniry noting that "Often, bullying was typically practiced by students with personal problems, or more precisely, personal jealousy. They are not happy to see other students performing better than them" (UINAR1-AZ).
Intellectual jealousy among university students is becoming a major concern in academic backdrop. Likewise, Cismaru and Cismaru (2018) have found that students moving from rural to urban community will be more exposed to the type intellectual jealousy. In the context of UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh such findings may be relevant considering the fact that most students are coming from the regions outside the capital city where the university located.
Therefore, there are some kinds of feelings of certain pressures to academically perform higher to compete with the urban students. In a global context, intellectual capital is the main ingredient to mobilized universities" competitiveness and sustainability (Secundo, De Beer, Schutte, & Passiante, 2017). This has led to the fact that students suffered psychological setback like being jealous once they see somebody is performing better than him or her and they were unable to catch up with them.

Differences in thoughts and appearances
One of the common factors that lead someone commit to bullying behaviour come from the individual uniqueness; there is something different or unusual in the person being bullied. These differences may be in personality, performance, opinions, and behaviour. One participant states: "What appears is that maybe because he does not fit into his group, then he is considered different. There were some bullies that were caused due to different appearances, somewhat like that, so it was considered inappropriate.."(UINSYA2-KR). Another participant says: " because she/he is different from others or different opinions" (UINSUKA2-KP).
The differences usually make one individu become a centre of attention and may raise curiousity among others as well as increase the possibility to be bullied. One participant adds: "some students are a little different because they are a bit feminine. I know from the students" talk, from class as well, from the observations during the learning process...he felt that from side of his appearance he was a bit feminine... many of his friends stayed away, maybe affraid of being influenced" (UINSUKA3-FM).

Lack of understanding on bullying meaning
Of course, different students have dissimilar takes on the notion of bullying. Though the point here is that bullying understanding is in fact is not only varied from one person to another, but more importantly it is unknown or simply undefined for many reasons. Simply put, the lack of information and education on bullying has impacted the precise understanding of what bully really means (Harrison, Fox, & Hulme, 2020).
Here is what a lecturer found in her classroom: "They do not seem to know what bully really is" (UINAR2-MA). Of all the aspect that triggers bullying, we can safely say that the insufficient knowledge on bullying has formed a major factor. Knowing this does not necessarily or straightforwardly reduce the practice of bullying, but it can give control for further probe on what actually cause bullying. This, in turn, as has been pointed out by Branch and Murray (2015), could lead to inaction within the university surrounding.

Lack of regulation
Over the past years, complaints on the lack of institutionalized regulations and enforcement have effectively hampered the strategies to overcome bullying in the university. According to Hollis (2017), workplace bullying, and in this case within university surrounding, is one apparent civilizational deficiency. This has led to an increasing belief that students, lecturers and all university actors received less protection. As one participant asserts "No warning, no enforcement and lacking the required regulation" (UINAR3-RT).
We have repeatedly used this excuse as a starting point for making a free-bullying workplace, including in university. The reason is because it endorses commonly agreed and formal regulations that can take place and reflect upon its enforcement mechanism. As it appears we have only "emotional regulation" (Mahady, Craig, & Pepler, 2000) and "personal self-regulation" (de la Fuente et al., 2014) in handling serious issues like bullying.

Impact of bullying on students' academic achievement
When asked if the bullying incidents affect their academic attainments, not all students agreed that bullying has detrimental effect on their academic accomplishment. The students" reflection if bullying affects their academic achievement or not is illustrated in the following table. Overall, regarding the effects of bullying on academic achievement, the students from three Islamic higher education institutions convey the same information, in which bullying affects their academic attainments. Among the surveyed students, the majority of students from UIN Ar-Raniry claimed that bullying significantly affects their academic achievement; its percentage reaches 70.5 percent. While the majority of students from both UIN Syarif Hidayatullah and UIN Sunan Kalijaga claimed that sometimes bullying affects their academic achievements.
Regarding the effects that the students feel when they are bullied, the survey illuminates four significant issues as described in the following table. The table above elaborates significant effects of bullying toward students. The majority of students from three universities said that the biggest effects that they feel as the result of bullying is less confident (64,7% in UIN Ar-Raniry, 60,8% in UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, and 53.2% in UIN Sunan Kalijaga), followed by stressful (39, 2% in UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, 33.3% in UIN Ar-Raniry, and 32.3% in UIN Sunan Kalijaga). Meanwhile anxious feelings share the same percentage between UIN Syarif Hidayatullah and UIN Sunan Kalijaga, 34, 8 %. The lowest effect that they feel after being bullied is becoming passive students sharing 31.5 % at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, 21, 5 % at UIN Sunan Kalijaga, and 18.8 % at UIN Ar-Raniry respectively.
Traditionally, the first and foremost impact of bullying on students" academic achievement is the serious decreased of learning interests and enthusiasm. These are seen as the key negative impact of bullying. A large part of the decreasing learning interests and enthusiasm are generated by the psychological stress and distress felt by the victims where the creative power and spirit in learning were discouraged following the incident and remain unforgettable during a considerable length of time. Young-Jones, Fursa, Byrket, and Sly (2015) describe that bullying and victimization in higher education like in universities settings have seriously given damaging downturn for student academic motivation. A lecturer participated in this study highlights this impact here saying that "Yes, the impact left the mark on the bullied students. Their learning enthusiasm or interests is decreasing and it eventually led to their overall academic performance" (UINAR1-AZ). In a similar light, another participant contends that: It is infectious, very much contagious. They see themselves as incapable, belittled, and excluded and being kept away from friends. They become lazier, then psychologically studying with no enthusiasm. That is why I always ask my students if they missed the class three consecutive meetings, why? …. (UINSYA5-MW).
Academic performance is believed to be the special aspect that reflects the complexity of the bullied students to activate their learning motivation, including that of interest and enthusiasm. As shown by the above interview, bullying also distracts the attention for learning and is being the cause of both the lack of concentration and strategic ability to cope with problem. Positive learning environment may give more positive atmosphere for learning and of course positive attitude and personalities that trigger better academic performances (Cowie & Myers, 2015).
The following example demonstrates how bullying can left permanent mark on the victim personal confidence. The act of bullying often struggled to perform well in the classroom, especially in public presentation and the likes. Although the victims of bullying understanding of the subject matter is up to scratch, but clear evidence suggests that the psychological impact on confidence will last longer that one could imagine as illustrated by a participant: "Of course it is bad for the self-confidence. They felt unappreciated, unaccepted or rejected, inferior, unable to perform well in the classroom" (UINSYA1-HA).
This finding is in line with Singh"s (2017) examination that the loss of confidence and self-esteem is notable amongst the victim of bullying. Although the reported selfconfidence corrodes is qualitatively unknown and mostly related to the level or scale of bullying behavior, serious impact must not be left unattended.

Classroom bullying prevention
Dealing with bullying issues, the lecturers have tried to do some preventive steps to minimize bullying behaviour among the students. Providing classroom regulation, being a councelor for students, enforcing regulation, and massive socialization are some ways used by the lecturer to prevent and handle bullying incidents.

Providing classroom regulation
Most lecturers take the opportunity to socialize appropriate behaviour at the beginning semester by providing classroom regulation. Thus, the students understand what the lecturers expect from them. One lecturer says: At the beginning of the semester, we usually have a contract. At this time, I said that we are all the same here. I explained that everyone has the same rights and obligations; what makes the difference is your achievement. Thus, at the beginning of the semester, I reminded the students that arbitrary actions were not right (UINSYA2-FA).
Even if providing a better and protective environment is the responsibility of the whole university citizens, a responsible and well-educated individual or lecturer is required to make proper intervention for bullying acts. Hypothetically, any lecturer is the heart and the state of the art in which they can provide a clear framework in their respective classrooms and students under their supervision. For example, the following excerpt demonstrates: I always firmly address this issue in my first meeting of the class. This is about morality and respect. If it gets worse, I will stop the class and do the personal interrogation and correction. Or else, In Ma'had (students" dorm) they can get more advice by their mentors that Islam should not let bullying happens (UINAR2-MA).
This present study indicated that the need to arrange for a special precondition to support a more effective classroom atmosphere to address the issues. However, Lewis (2004) emphasizes the importance of the correct advice, since inappropriate and wrong advices can even escalate tension between university actors.

Being a counsellor
As an educator, one of lecturer"s role is a councellor. The students may come to see the lecturer for asking some advices. Thus, it is the time for the lecturer to provide appropriate advices that offer some solutions for the students. One lecturer states: "a lecturer has space to communicate before learning. In the middle of learning, we can use a few minutes for giving advices" (UINSYA3-MW). Another lecturer says: In the classroom, I do not immediately admonish students because they are adult learners, so their actions are no longer pedagogical but androgogical, I call them to talk face to face, the one who bully his/her friends and the one who is the victim (UINSYA2-FA).
An interesting finding also said that psychological help for victims does repair mental health. It appears that managing psychological impact, particularly those involved engaging counseling unit or department, as puts forward by this participant can be a way out too "We must treat them well, assist them. Bring them to psychological counseling department or counseling unit" (UINSU2-MA).
This speaks to the power of the faculty and university in getting involved in enhancing the psychological consequences reduced and supportive climate upheld (Eliot et al., 2010). By this step, it is expected that the students willingness to speak and to let go what has happened can occur, or else, the enthusiasm to find help and support is flourishing.

Enforcing regulation
As noted above, the top down regulation and enforcement with serious sanction and ethical code is noteworthy to be implemented. Even if the face of the many faces of rules, regulation and ethical code implementation may vary from one institution to another, it reveals that university leaders pay thoughtful consideration on bullying, especially when bottom up approach did not effectively work "Once the personal approach didn"t work, use the ethical code and its sanction" (UINSU2-MA).
Building from the comment, the captured finding from several interviews discloses that the prevalence of bullying in higher education may depend on the operationalization of the sufficient time frame to enforce regulation and sanction to take effect. To certain degree, a revitalized regulatory scheme to address bullying is desperately needed (Harthill, 2009), though the "compliance trap" in responsive regulatory enforcement is lurking (Parker, 2006).

Massive campaign and socialization
Taking into account the prospective for bullying situation to explode and involve more people in university settings, the evidence suggests that massive campaign and extensive socialization is urgently needed. We recognize that the following response from our participant indicates this need, whereby socialization and campaign is rarely considered as important as taking curative actions in post-bullying backdrops "Socialization to resist the temptation to pose comments, though difficulty because everyone will argue that is part of freedom of speech and intellectual freedom" (UINSU4).
Socialization and campaign can involve multi-stakeholder participation, ranging from parents to lecturers and from staffs to peer students (Sullivan, 2010). The antibullying campaign and intervention must take into consideration every level of a student"s experience (Kern, 2010). Another way is incorporating anti-bullying concept into religious courses, as proposed by the following participant, considering the nature of Islamic state university contexts "Maybe we can integrate it into religious courses. Islam doesn"t teach such things. Address bullying in religious activities, talk show, sermons, etc." (UINSU1-NA).

Conclusion
Bullying occurs in the university in various forms. Different students experience different types of bully depend on the surrounding circumstances. The main source of bullying comes from something that is considered different by a person or a group of people over others. These differences of appearance, idea, and performance have been a reason for making fun. Although the lecturers mentioned that they have already taken appropriate measures to prevent bullying during the teaching and learning process, the students themselves are not sure that bullying has already been well tackled in the classroom and university environment. We also found that bullying affects students" academic achievement as it strikes students" performance and behavior in the classroom.
The lecturers seem to emphasize verbal bullying as the most common one occurring in the classroom. The lecturers detect verbal bullying actions during the teaching and learning process. Verbal bullying is common among the students, particularly in higher education level (Hogue & Disbrow, 2013;Coloroso, 2003;Shellard, 2002). However, the majority of students also mention that they also experience physical, social, and racial bullying during their study. For the lecturers, they can only detect bullying actions in the classroom; they may lose information of what happen outside the classroom if the students do not report to them.
In terms of triggering factors of bullying, competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearances, lack of understanding on bullying meaning, and lack of regulation are indicated as the source of bullying. Competition leads someone to commit on bullying behaviour by gossiping, saying negative words, judging without reasons and so forth. The uniquness of of individul also often stimulate bullying occur. For some students, when they see and face something difference in terms of intellectual, opinions, personality, social background, power and hierarchy, they may have a reason to make fun of others through their behavior, words, and actions. Lack of regulation, then, is mentioned by the lecturer as the main cause of bullying actions continues.
In addition, the findings also indicate that bullying influences students" academic achievement. Majority students believe that bullying inhibits their learning process as their psychological state may be disruptive which affect their study habit and behaviour. Bullying incidents have driven their victims into four pathetic conditions: less confident, stressed, anxious, and passive. All these conditions have relation with successfull learning as they determine students" enthusiasm and participation in classroom activities.
Some efforts are utilized by the lecturers to prevent and handle bullying; they are: providing classroom regulation, being a councelor for students, enforcing regulation, and massive socialization. For the students, the rules are important but their implementation is also crucial; for this reason, providing rewards and punishment related to bullying actions may become a solution to prevent bullying. It educates students to stay away from engaging in bullying actions. Although the lecturers say that they actually implicitly prevent bullying through their advice during teaching and learning process, the students may not be aware that the lecturers" advice refers to bullying issues; they may think that the lecturers just talk about behavior in general. Personal approach is also often used by the lecturers when bullying occurs in the classroom by calling all the students involved in bullying actions. However, this action may have limited solution as one or two bullying cases may need bigger actions from higher management at the university.
A strong force is required to make bullying issues more sounded. In this case, each university needs to enforce any regulation on bullying prevention and provide report mechanism; the students should be given clear information of where to go and to whom they should report and talk to. Based on the interviews with the lecturers, there is no regulation from the university related to bullying issues; there is only ethics regulation. Anti-bullying policies are required due to the increase of bullying actions in campus. The lack of anti-bullying policies at the higher level of management at the university has led bullying case inappropriately tackled (Hollis, 2017).