Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Through a Gender Lens: A Serious Game for Young Children to Enhance Bullying Awareness and Encourage the Adoption of the Defender Role

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Serious Games (JCSG 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14309))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Bullying is a global issue that threatens the safety and wellbeing of children worldwide. While bullying is observed amongst children of all ages, the behavior peaks at ages 11–14 years. One intervention method is through the use of games. 23 mixed-gender children aged 7–11 years participated in this study, which examines the impact of Cairdeas Quest, a fantasy serious game, on increasing bullying awareness and how to respond in different bullying situations. Through an analysis of gameplay metrics, the results show that Cairdeas Quest positively impacted the identification of bullying/cyberbullying and the selection of appropriate responses in various bullying situations. All participants correctly selected the defender role in response to bullying and indirect cyberbullying in the hallway and bedroom scenes. However, the main issue concerned how to respond to verbal bullying in a classroom. In general, female players were more empathic than their male peers in different bullying/cyberbullying situations and were more likely to adopt the defender role. Meanwhile, a greater level of improvement was evidenced in the male players after playing Cairdeas Quest. This is a positive outcome as boys are more likely to adopt the bully perpetrator and bystander roles.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. WHO: Social determinants of health and well-being among young people (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Calvo-Morata, A., et al.: Serious games to prevent and detect bullying and cyberbullying: a systematic serious games and literature review. Comput. Educ. 157, 103958 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Moore, S.E., et al.: Consequences of bullying victimization in childhood and adolescence: a systematic review and meta-analysis. World J. Psychiatry 7(1), 60 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Armitage, R.: Bullying in children: impact on child health. BMJ Paediatrics Open 5(1) (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Arseneault, L.: The long-term impact of bullying victimization on mental health. World Psychiatry 16(1), 27 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Menesini, E., Salmivalli, C.: Bullying in schools: the state of knowledge and effective interventions. Psychol. Health Med. 22(sup1), 240–253 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Salmivalli, C.: Participant roles in bullying: how can peer bystanders be utilized in interventions? Theory Pract. 53(4), 286–292 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Graham, S.: Victims of bullying in schools. Theory Pract. 55(2), 136–144 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Raminhos, C., et al.: A serious game-based solution to prevent bullying. Int. J. Perv. Comput. Commun. (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Lambe, L.J., et al.: Does defending come with a cost? Examining the psychosocial correlates of defending behaviour among bystanders of bullying in a Canadian sample. Child Abuse Negl. 65, 112–123 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Lucas-Molina, B., et al.: Bullying, defending, and outsider behaviors: the moderating role of social status and gender in their relationship with empathy. Scand. J. Psychol. 59(4), 473–482 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Jenkins, L.N., Nickerson, A.B.: Bullying participant roles and gender as predictors of bystander intervention. Aggress. Behav. 43(3), 281–290 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. DeSmet, A., et al.: The efficacy of the Friendly Attac serious digital game to promote prosocial bystander behavior in cyberbullying among young adolescents: a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Comput. Hum. Behav. 78, 336–347 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Klomek, A.B., Sourander, A., Elonheimo, H.: Bullying by peers in childhood and effects on psychopathology, suicidality, and criminality in adulthood. Lancet Psychiatry 2(10), 930–941 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Álvarez-García, D., García, T., Núñez, J.C.: Predictors of school bullying perpetration in adolescence: a systematic review. Aggress. Violent Beh. 23, 126–136 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Coelho, V.A., Sousa, V.: Class-level risk factors for bullying and victimization in Portuguese middle schools. Sch. Psychol. Int. 39(2), 121–137 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Bauman, S., Cross, D., Walker, J.: Principles of Cyberbullying Research: Definition, Methods, and Measures, p. 2013 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Brennan, A., Dempsey, M.: P-PAC (Partnership in Pedagogy, Accreditation, and Collaboration): a framework to support student transition to employability in industry. A lean systems case study. Manag. Prod. Eng. Rev. 9 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Brennan, A., Dempsey, M.: The student voice: the students own views on smartphone usage and impact on their academic performance. INTED, Valencia (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Peter, I.-K., Petermann, F.: Cyberbullying: a concept analysis of defining attributes and additional influencing factors. Comput. Hum. Behav. 86, 350–366 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Schade, B.P., Larwin, K.H., Larwin, D.A.: Public vs. private cyberbullying among adolescents. Interdiscip. Educ. Psychol. 1(1), 5 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  22. van Tiel, J.: Cyberbullying, an overlooked and ever growing danger to the development of children (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Rončević Zubković, B., et al.: The role of experience during playing bullying prevention serious game: effects on knowledge and compassion. Behav. Inf. Technol. 41(2), 401–415 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Calderón, A., Ruiz, M.: A systematic literature review on serious games evaluation: an application to software project management. Comput. Educ. 87, 396–422 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Brennan, A., et al.: Cosmic Sounds: A game to support Phonological Awareness skills for children with Dyslexia. IEEE Trans. Learn. Technol. 15 (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Silva, F.G.: Practical methodology for the design of educational serious games. Information 11(1), 14 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Habgood, M.J., Ainsworth, S.E.: Motivating children to learn effectively: exploring the value of intrinsic integration in educational games. J. Learn. Sci. 20(2), 169–206 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Malone, T.W.: Toward a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction. Cogn. Sci. 5(4), 333–369 (1981)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Alserri, S.A., Zin, N.A.M., Wook, T.: Gender-based engagement model for serious games. Int. J. Adv. Sci. Eng. Inf. Technol. 8(4), 1350–1357 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Buzady, Z.: Flow, leadership and serious games–a pedagogical perspective. World J. Sci. Technol. Sustain. Dev. 14, 204–217 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Wang, J.-Y., Lin, W., Yueh, H.-P.: Collaborate or compete? How will multiplayers’ interaction affect their learning performance in serious games. In: Rau, P.L. (ed.) Cross-Cultural Design. Culture and Society. HCII 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 11577, pp. 482–491. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22580-3_36

  32. Geslin, E., Jégou, L., Beaudoin, D.: How color properties can be used to elicit emotions in video games. Int. J. Comput. Games Technol. 2016, 1–9 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Brown, A., et al.: Gender Differences when Adopting Avatars for Educational Games. In: 2021 Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Reay, E.: The child in games: representations of children in video games (2009–2019). Game Stud. 21(1) (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Levine, E., Tamburrino, M.: Bullying among young children: strategies for prevention. Early Childhood Educ. J. 42(4), 271–278 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Wang, K., et al.: Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2019. NCES 2020–063/NCJ 254485. National Center for Education Statistics (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Ferrara, P., et al.: Cyberbullying a modern form of bullying: let’s talk about this health and social problem. Ital. J. Pediatr. 44(1), 1–3 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Anderson, K.E.: Getting acquainted with social networks and apps: it is time to talk about TikTok. Library hi tech news (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Park, J., et al.: GAMESIT: a gamified system for information technology training. Comput. Educ. 142, 103643 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Winter, L.-C., et al.: Applying pedagogical approaches to enhance learning: linking self-regulated and skills-based learning with support from Moodle extensions. In: 2013 Second IIAI International Conference on Advanced Applied Informatics. IEEE (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Coyne, R.: Mindless repetition: learning from computer games. Des. Stud. 24(3), 199–212 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Hamlen, K.R.: Children’s choices and strategies in video games. Comput. Hum. Behav. 27(1), 532–539 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Crowe, S., et al.: The case study approach. BMC Med. Res. Methodol. 11(1), 100 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Hulley, S.B.: Designing Clinical Research. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Cantone, E., et al.: Interventions on bullying and cyberbullying in schools: a systematic review. Clin. Pract. Epidemiol. Mental Health: CP & EMH 11(Suppl. 1 M4), 58 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  46. Ransford-Kaldon, C.R., et al.: Implementation of Effective Intervention: An Empirical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy of Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI). 2009–2010. Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  47. Parker, B.C., Myrick, F.: A critical examination of high-fidelity human patient simulation within the context of nursing pedagogy. Nurse Educ. Today 29(3), 322–329 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Gibson, J.E.: Interviews and focus groups with children: methods that match children’s developing competencies. J. Fam. Theory Rev. 4(2), 148–159 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Calvo-Morata, A., et al.: Validation of a cyberbullying serious game using game analytics. IEEE Trans. Learn. Technol. 13(1), 186–197 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Serrano-Laguna, Á., et al.: Applying standards to systematize learning analytics in serious games. Comput. Stand. Interf. 50, 116–123 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Maguire, M., Delahunt, B.: Doing a thematic analysis: a practical, step-by-step guide for learning and teaching scholars. All Irel. J. High. Educ. 9(3) (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  52. Adler, K., Salanterä, S., Zumstein-Shaha, M.: Focus group interviews in child, youth, and parent research: an integrative literature review. Int. J. Qual. Methods 18, 1609406919887274 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Turner, C.W., Lewis, J.R., Nielsen, J.: Determining usability test sample size. Int. Encycl. Ergon. Hum. Factors 3(2), 3084–3088 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  54. Cheng, Y.-M., et al.: Investigating elementary school students’ technology acceptance by applying digital game-based learning to environmental education. Australas. J. Educ. Technol. 29(1) (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  55. Anastasiadis, T., Lampropoulos, G., Siakas, K.: Digital game-based learning and serious games in education. Int. J. Adv. Sci. Res. Eng. 4(12), 139–144 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  56. Moizer, J., et al.: An approach to evaluating the user experience of serious games. Comput. Educ. 136, 141–151 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Lyon, N., et al.: Little Newton: an educational physics game. In: Proceedings of the First ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  58. Ratan, R.A., et al.: Women keep it real: Avatar gender choice in league of legends. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 22(4), 254–257 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Jin, S.-A.A.: The virtual malleable self and the virtual identity discrepancy model: investigative frameworks for virtual possible selves and others in avatar-based identity construction and social interaction. Comput. Hum. Behav. 28(6), 2160–2168 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Chang, C.-C., et al.: Is game-based learning better in flow experience and various types of cognitive load than non-game-based learning? Perspective from multimedia and media richness. Comput. Hum. Behav. 71, 218–227 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Gaete, J., et al.: Validation of the revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (OBVQ-R) among adolescents in Chile. Front. Psychol. 12 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  62. Song, J., Oh, I.: Factors influencing bystanders’ behavioral reactions in cyberbullying situations. Comput. Hum. Behav. 78, 273–282 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Eslea, M., Rees, J.: At what age are children most likely to be bullied at school? Aggress. Behav.: Off. J. Int. Soc. Res. Aggress. 27(6), 419–429 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Nansel, T.R., et al.: Bullying behaviors among US youth: prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment. JAMA 285(16), 2094–2100 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Attracta Brennan, Caroline Manghan & Sam Redfern

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Mary Dempsey

  3. Business Information Systems, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    John McAvoy

Authors
  1. Attracta Brennan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Caroline Manghan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Mary Dempsey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. John McAvoy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Sam Redfern
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Attracta Brennan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Mads Haahr

  2. University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica

    Alberto Rojas-Salazar

  3. TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Stefan Göbel

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Brennan, A., Manghan, C., Dempsey, M., McAvoy, J., Redfern, S. (2023). Through a Gender Lens: A Serious Game for Young Children to Enhance Bullying Awareness and Encourage the Adoption of the Defender Role. In: Haahr, M., Rojas-Salazar, A., Göbel, S. (eds) Serious Games. JCSG 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14309. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44751-8_20

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44751-8_20

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-44750-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-44751-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation