The Development of Mockumentary Short Film to Support Secondary School Students' Perceived Awareness, Empathy, and New Perspectives on Cyberbullying Toward LGBTQ+ Peers

Cyberbullying presents considerable psychological, emotional, and social challenges for LGBTQ+ adolescents. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a mockumentary short film as an educational media product to support secondary school students' perceived awareness, empathy, and new perspectives regarding cyberbullying toward LGBTQ+ peers in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area. A developmental research method (Type I) guided the systematic design, development, and evaluation of the mockumentary short film across three sequential phases- 1) design phase involving 65 LGBTQ+ secondary school students who shared prevalent cyberbullying experiences to inform the film's conceptualization and narrative construction; 2) development phase in which the short film was produced and formatively evaluated through expert review to assess content and media quality; and 3) evaluation phase employing a one-group posttest-only design with 50 general secondary school students who viewed the completed film and provided immediate post-viewing responses regarding awareness, empathy, and new perspectives on cyberbullying toward LGBTQ+ peers. This evaluation approach was intended to capture immediate post-viewing perceptions rather than causal intervention effects while addressing ethical considerations, as implementation occurred outside formal classroom instruction. The findings identified body shaming, sexual harassment, and gender inequality as the most prevalent forms of cyberbullying in digital environments. The development process resulted in an approximately 11-minute short film. Expert ratings suggested a 'very good level' of media quality and a 'good level' of content quality. Post-viewing results indicated ratings significantly above the neutral midpoint of the five-point scale (one-sample t-tests, p