A social computer game could be used to identify bullies in elementary school classrooms and help scholars better understand peer aggression.

Researchers in computer science and educational psychology at the University of Illinois have developed a social sensing game that allows researchers to study natural interactions between children, collect large amounts of data about those interactions and test theories about youth aggression and victimization. The game's behavior analyses effectively identify classroom bullies, even revealing peer aggression that goes undetected by traditional research methods, the researchers say.

"What we wanted was to have more real-time information and to include advancements in computer science to process the data and get more insights into it so we could understand the problem of bullying better and create interventions," Juan F. Mancilla-Caceres, who developed the algorithms for the game while earning a doctorate in computer science at the university, said in a statement.

The research was conducted as part of a larger, longitudinal study on bullying led by Dorothy Espelage, co-author of the study, and funded by the National Science Foundation.
The researchers tested the game with 97 students in six classrooms who were participating in Espelage's bullying research. The students, all fifth-graders, had been surveyed about various types of bullying, fighting, leadership and domineering behavior, as well as their attitudes and friends' perceived attitudes toward victimizing and defending peers. 

Based on students' self-reports, each student was labeled a "bully,"  "non-bully" or "victim" prior to playing the game.

Analyses of the 7,800 messages that the participants exchanged over the chat interface were compared to the survey data, and the researchers found that the game was effective at evaluating player interactions and detecting bullying.

"Bullies played the game very differently than their classmates who were non-bullies or victims," Espelage said. "Bullies sent more private messages, peeked at the correct answer more often and sent more negative nominations."
The game also revealed bullying behavior that had eluded detection by traditional research methods, said Mancilla-Caceres, currently an applied researcher with Microsoft Corp. 

The researchers plan to refine the game, adding new tasks to increase player engagement and improve the efficiency of the behavior analyses. The game may become available to other scientists and educators in the near future.