Research introduces digital games along with multimedia debriefing to address cyberbullying

The global COVID-19 pandemic caused much suffering and tragedy and continues to do so. One aspect of our everyday lives that was massively disrupted was education. Conventional classroom teaching methods had to be digitized urgently during lockdowns when schools were forced to close to reduce the risk of spreading the potentially lethal coronavirus.

A study in the International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation has looked at how new strategies had to be developed during this time and how educators were forced to tackle the emergence of cyberbullying among middle school students that the shift to online learning led to.

In their work, Sasipim Poompimol, Suthiporn Sajjapanroj, and Thanyaluck Ingkavara of Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom, Patcharin Panjaburee of Khon Kaen University in Khon Kaen, Chanayuth Changpetch of Mahasarakham University in Maha Sarakham, and Preeyada Tapingkae of Bansanpasak School in Chiang Mai, Thailand, introduced a digital board game along with multimedia debriefing sessions that could be used as educational tools for online and distance learning. These tools can be used to reduce the incidence of cyberbullying during a major crisis and afterwards, where online learning has become part of the new normal.

The team’s case study involved 56 middle school students. The team found that the students’ understanding and perceptions of cyberbullying after participating in gaming sessions with multimedia debriefing was much greater than when compared to those gaming sessions without the debriefing.

Self-reported questionnaires and interviews further indicated positive experiences with the multimedia debriefing method and effectiveness of this game-based approach to learning in improving the students’ understanding of cyberbullying and hopefully leading to a fall in the number of such incidents.

The research also has implications beyond addressing the problem of cyberbullying. A similar approach might also be used to address mental health and digital well-being issues that arise when students are isolated from classmates and find themselves learning in their homes rather than the classroom, where there might be family or other environmental pressures on them.

Innovation of this kind allows teachers to improve the learning experience for students. This will be relevant in the post-pandemic world and in the future when we have to face another such crisis.