EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SBTOMI APP FOR EARLY BULLYING DETECTION IN SERANG CITY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: A TPB APPROACH

Bullying is a persistent public health and educational problem that manifests as repeated aggression and power imbalance in schools, including in Indonesia. Recent reports indicate that a large proportion of Indonesian students experience bullying at least once, while cyberbullying has increased alongside rapid digitalisation and widespread smartphone use. Conventional prevention strategies in Indonesian schools still rely on socialisation, character-building campaigns, and manual reporting, which are often reactive, delayed, and unable to capture silent cases. To address this gap, the SBTOMI Android-based application was developed as a digital early detection tool for bullying behaviour among senior high school students, grounded in the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). This quasi-experimental analytic survey aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of SBTOMI and identify key TPB-related predictors of perceived effectiveness. The study involved 409 grade XI students from 20 high schools in Serang City selected through cluster sampling. Data were collected using validated questionnaires embedded in the SBTOMI app and analysed using univariate, bivariate (Chi-square), and multivariate logistic regression. Overall, 90.5% of respondents rated SBTOMI as effective for early detection of bullying. Supportive anti-bullying attitudes, knowledge of religious and legal norms, and high perceived behavioural control were significantly associated with app effectiveness. In the final multivariate model, religious norms emerged as the most dominant predictor (OR 11.309), followed by parental communication and social support. These findings suggest that integrating TPB constructs and contextual religious values into digital applications such as SBTOMI can strengthen school-based strategies for early detection and prevention of bullying in Indonesia.