Anti-bullying programs and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs): A systematic review

Abstract Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) constitute suitable tools for interventions with children and adolescents promoting their emotional, psychological and social wellbeing. Recently, in the field of bullying and cyberbullying prevention, some programs started to be implemented using the benefits offered by the virtual environments. The current paper aims to carry out a systematic review on anti-bullying ICT-mediated intervention, analyzing the characteristics of the main programs and the evidence of their effectiveness. The review conducted on three databases (PsycINFO, Scopus and PubMed) yielded 32 full text papers finally evaluated. Overall, considering the enormous development of digital tools and the importance of this experience for young students, the review underlines that ICT tools are generally under-used in prevention and intervention against bullying and cyberbullying (13 programs emerged from the search). In recent years some advances in this direction can be found with the use of different ICTs (serious game, virtual reality, online platforms, internet activities, technological solution). The need for scientific studies on the effectiveness of these virtual interventions is evident from this review and necessary in order to assist practitioners, policy makers, and administrators in deciding which interventions can work or not and why.

[1]  Sarah N. Woods,et al.  “FearNot!”: a computer-based anti-bullying-programme designed to foster peer intervention , 2011 .

[2]  E. Nevo,et al.  Abstracts of papers presented at , 1987, Phytoparasitica.

[3]  J. Gee,et al.  How Computer Games Help Children Learn , 2006 .

[4]  Marcela Georgina Gómez Zermeño.  Bibliotecas digitales: recursos bibliográficos electrónicos en educación básica , 2012 .

[5]  D. Olweus.  Cyberbullying: An overrated phenomenon? , 2012 .

[6]  E. Brewer.  Fighting Fire With Fire: The Use of A Multimedia WebQuest in Increasing Middle-School Students' Understandings of Cyberbullying , 2011 .

[7]  Robert F. Boruch,et al.  Standards of Evidence: Criteria for Efficacy, Effectiveness and Dissemination , 2005, Prevention Science.

[8]  Bernie Dodge,et al.  WebQuests: A Technique for Internet-Based Learning. , 1995 .

[9]  Catholijn M. Jonker,et al.  User Validation of an Empathic Virtual Buddy against Cyberbullying , 2012, Annual Review of Cybertherapy and Telemedicine.

[10]  Augusto Hasman,et al.  Comments on the paper , 2012 .

[11]  C. Salmivalli,et al.  Effectiveness of the KiVa antibullying programme on bully-victims, bullies and victims , 2015 .

[12]  J. Bostic,et al.  Cornered: an approach to school bullying and cyberbullying, and forensic implications. , 2011, Child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of North America.

[13]  Dorothy L. Espelage,et al.  Preliminary Evaluation of a Multimedia Violence Prevention Program for Adolescents , 2000 .

[14]  Rebecca Ahlfors.  Many Sources, One Theme: Analysis of Cyberbullying Prevention and Intervention Websites , 2010 .

[15]  Ana Paiva,et al.  e-Motional Learning in Primary Schools: FearNot! An Anti-Bullying Intervention Based on Virtual Role-Play with Intelligent Synthetic Characters. , 2008 .

[16]  Ruth Aylett,et al.  Unscripted narrative for affectively driven characters , 2005, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[17]  Rosa María Baños,et al.  Positive Technology: Using Interactive Technologies to Promote Positive Functioning , 2012, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[18]  K. Dautenhahn,et al.  Inter-cultural differences in response to a computer-based anti-bullying intervention , 2010 .

[19]  T. Little,et al.  Effectiveness of the KiVa Antibullying Program: Grades 1-3 and 7-9 , 2013 .

[20]  Karolien Poels,et al.  The development of a serious game on cyberbullying: a concept test , 2015 .

[21]  Ana Paiva,et al.  Caring for agents and agents that care: building empathic relations with synthetic agents , 2004, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2004. AAMAS 2004..

[22]  Ruth Aylett,et al.  FearNot's Appearance: Reflecting Children's Expectations and Perspectives , 2006, IVA.

[23]  Luca Argenton,et al.  Serious Games as Positive Technologies , 2014, HCI.

[24]  K Bosworth,et al.  A computer-based violence prevention intervention for young adolescents: pilot study. , 1998, Adolescence.

[25]  C. Salmivalli,et al.  Development, Evaluation, and Diffusion of a National Anti-Bullying Program, KiVa , 2010 .

[26]  K. Poels,et al.  Online perspective-taking as an intervention tool against cyberbullying. , 2014, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[27]  Ersilia Menesini,et al.  Cyberbullying: The right value of the phenomenon. Comments on the paper “Cyberbullying: An overrated phenomenon?” , 2012 .

[28]  Kerstin Dautenhahn,et al.  Implications of gender differences for the development of animated characters for the study of bullying behavior , 2007, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[29]  S. Woods,et al.  Lessons Learned Using Theory of Mind Methods to Investigate User Social Awareness in Virtual Role-Play , 2009 .

[30]  P. Slee,et al.  The Peace Pack: A Computerized Online Assessment of School Bullying , 2014 .

[31]  Ersilia Menesini,et al.  Online and offline peer led models against bullying and cyberbullying. , 2012, Psicothema.

[32]  Ana Paiva,et al.  FearNot!: providing children with strategies to cope with bullying , 2009, IDC.

[33]  Polly Ryan,et al.  The efficacy of tailored interventions. , 2002, Journal of nursing scholarship : an official publication of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

[34]  Robert T Hays,et al.  The Effectiveness of Instructional Games: A Literature Review and Discussion , 2005 .

[35]  José A. Casas,et al.  El programa ConRed, una práctica basada en la evidencia , 2012 .

[37]  Ana Paiva,et al.  Designing Empathic Agents: Adults Versus Kids , 2004, Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

[38]  Ana Paiva,et al.  Mind the Body , 2006, IVA.

[39]  Henry Lieberman,et al.  Common Sense Reasoning for Detection, Prevention, and Mitigation of Cyberbullying , 2012, TIIS.

[40]  D. Olweus,et al.  Bullying at school : what we know and what we can do / Dan Olweus , 1993 .

[42]  Ersilia Menesini,et al.  Empowering Students Against Bullying and Cyberbullying: Evaluation of an Italian Peer-led Model , 2012 .

[43]  Francine Dehue,et al.  Online Pestkoppenstoppen: systematic and theory-based development of a web-based tailored intervention for adolescent cyberbully victims to combat and prevent cyberbullying , 2014, BMC Public Health.

[44]  Adolfo J. Cangas,et al.  MII-School: A 3d videogame for the early detection of abuse of substances, bullying, and mental disorders in adolescents , 2011 .

[45]  D. Farrington,et al.  Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: a systematic and meta-analytic review , 2011 .

[46]  Vivian H. Wright,et al.  Cyberbullying: Using Virtual Scenarios to Educate and Raise Awareness , 2009 .

[47]  K. Bosworth.  “Talking It Out”: A Computer-Based Mediation Process for Adolescents , 2002 .

[48]  K Bosworth,et al.  Using multimedia to teach conflict-resolution skills to young adolescents. , 1996, American journal of preventive medicine.

[49]  Caroline B R Evans,et al.  The effectiveness of school-based bullying prevention programs: A systematic review , 2014 .

[50]  Sebastiaan Jans,et al.  "It’s like you're actually playing as yourself" : Development and preliminary evaluation of 'Green Acres High', a serious game-based primary intervention to combat adolescent dating violence , 2014 .

[51]  J. Mohyla,et al.  The P.E.A.C.E. Pack & S.I.T.E. software: Interventions to reduce bullying in Australian schools , 2012, 2012 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE).

[52]  Steven Brown,et al.  Quest for the Golden Rule: An effective social skills promotion and bullying prevention program , 2011, Comput. Educ..

[53]  D. Gustafson,et al.  Computer-based health promotion: combining technological advances with problem-solving techniques to effect successful health behavior changes. , 1987, Annual review of public health.

[54]  Eike Kiltz,et al.  Tightly-Secure Signatures from Chameleon Hash Functions , 2015, Public Key Cryptography.

[55]  Ana Paiva,et al.  Virtual learning intervention to reduce bullying victimization in primary school: a controlled trial. , 2010, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[56]  Can Do.  Bullying At School What We Know And What We Can Do , 2016 .

[57]  M. Eisner,et al.  The Future of Research on Evidence-based Developmental Violence Prevention in Europe – Introduction to the Focus Section , 2012 .

[58]  Elisa Poskiparta,et al.  A large-scale evaluation of the KiVa antibullying program: grades 4-6. , 2011, Child development.

[59]  Olga De Troyer,et al.  ATTAC-L: A modeling language for educational virtual scenarios in the context of preventing cyber bullying , 2013, 2013 IEEE 2nd International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health (SeGAH).

[60]  Ruth Aylett,et al.  FearNot! Involving Children in the Design of a Virtual Learning Environment , 2006, Int. J. Artif. Intell. Educ..