The Impact of Bullying on Students’ Academic Achievement at State Islamic Universities in Indonesia

Issues and accidents of bullying may take place at every time and every place, notwithstanding at Islamic education institutions. Various reports on bullying triggering factors have been continuously published. This study is aimed at exploring the effects of bullying on students’ academic achievement at Indonesian Islamic higher education institutions. This mixed-method study involved 546 students and 21 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 students and lecturers were selected randomly. A set of survey questionnaires was distributed to the students’ email of those three universities exploring their experiences about bullying incidents at their universities. Meanwhile, to explore an in-depth understanding of bullying issues at Islamic higher education institutions, the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with those available lecturers. The basic statistical formula was used to analyze the questionnaires, and thematic data analysis was also employed to analyze the interview data. The findings elucidate that two major factors have been luring students to bully others: for fun and other students do bullying as well. Revealing the bullying types, the data show that physical, social, and racial are among the most common emergent bullying incidents the students experienced. The findings also indicate that bullying incidents have driven their victims into four pathetic conditions: less confident, stressed, anxious, and passive. To eradicate the future bullying incidents, the findings v recommend that Islamic universities should pay strenuous attention to the following four significant actions: make strict rules against bullying, provide a clear route map on bullying report mechanism, help students work out on their bullying problems, and supervise the university better.