Bullying in schools is a widespread social issue, primarily encompassing verbal bullying (including mocking, defamation, insults, intimidation, and other verbal attacks), physical bullying (including shoving, hitting, slapping, beating, and other physical attacks), and social exclusion (including isolation, neglect, and ostracism), which brings serious consequences to victims and society as a whole.
School bullying not only inflicts physical and psychological harm on victims but also affects the overall atmosphere of the school and the learning outcomes of students. Therefore, the task of preventing and addressing school bullying is both important and urgent. As parents, schools, teachers, and members of society, we need to pay attention and take action to create a safe, harmonious, and healthy campus environment.
In recent years, with the development of social networks and internet technology, the phenomenon of school bullying has become more covert and even expanded further, making it increasingly difficult to control and manage.
Traditional methods for intervening in and preventing school bullying are insufficient to effectively tackle this issue. We need to explore new avenues for solutions to ensure the safety and rights of students. Some cutting-edge technological approaches can be combined with traditional school bullying management practices to effectively help schools implement experiences, prevention, and governance against bullying phenomena.
01 Current Research Status on School Bullying
Bullying is a common issue in schools across many countries, and it is considered to have long-term negative impacts on the physical, psychological, and academic adjustment of children and adolescents. Currently, research on bullying has seen more attention from scholars focused on resolving the role issues within bullying scenarios, namely the three roles that frequently appear in bullying incidents: bystanders, victims, and perpetrators.
Researchers have investigated factors related to bystander behavior in bullying, using various research methods, including surveys, interviews, and laboratory experiments. While these methods can provide key information about bullying and bystander behavior, they require participants to recall the situations in which they were bullied. Traditional psychological techniques do not provide good predictive capabilities for event recollection and specific problem-solving.
02 What is VR Technology?
Virtual reality (VR) technology creates a computer-based artificial environment that delivers synthetic sensory information to users in a “real rather than synthetic” form. With a sense of immersion, participation, and presence, the first-person visual and emotional characteristics of the virtual reality (VR) environment are well-suited for studying interpersonal interactions. Using virtual reality to investigate bystander behavior can address issues of experiential control, replicability, and ecological validity.
In virtual reality (VR) scenarios, strict experimental setups can be designed according to research objectives. Even in subsequent experiments, the study can be directly replicated in trials as needed, providing significant convenience.
