Group Formation for Minimizing Bullying

Probability. A Proposal Based on Genetic

Algorithms
L. Pedro Salcedo1 , M. Angelica Pinningho J.2 , and A. Ricardo Contreras2
1

Research and Educational Informatics Department

2
Department of Computer Science
University of Concepci
on, Chile
{psalcedo,mpinning,rcontrer}@udec.cl

Abstract. Bullying is a problem that needs to be considered in the

early stages of group formation. Unfortunately, as far as we are aware,
there is not known procedure helping teachers to cope with this problem.
It has been established that, in a certain group, a specic conguration
in the students distribution aects the behavior among them. Based on
this fact, we propose the use of genetic algorithms for helping in students
distribution in a classroom, taking into account elements like leadership
traits among other features. The sociogram is a technique that teachers
have been using for years for supporting group formation. The sociogram
is a sociometric diagram representing the pattern of relationships among
individuals in a group, usually expressed in terms of which persons they
prefer to associate with. This work combines the concepts of genetic
algorithms and sociograms, that can be easily represented by means of
relationships graphs. A set of tests is applied to the students to collect
relevant data, and results can be validated with the help of specialists.
Keywords: Bullying, Genetic algorithms, Sociograms.

Introduction

Bullying is currently a serious phenomena that aects negatively the school environment when it cannot be avoided or even detected. The problem can be treated
from dierent perspectives; however a single strategy cannot always guarantee
a successful action. There are some experiences that use intelligent techniques
for group formation in learning collaborative environments [1]. Based on this
idea we suggest that an analogous reasoning may help in determining groups in
a classroom, in such a way that the potential negative eect due to bullying is
minimized.
The denition of school bullying includes several key elements: physical, verbal, or psychological attack or intimidation that is intended to cause fear. Distress or harm to the victim; bullying can be generalized as an imbalance of power
(psychological or physical), where the dominant child (or children) opress the
less powerful ones. It has also been noticed that whenever bullying occurrs, the
J.M. Ferr
andez et al. (Eds.): IWINAC 2011, Part II, LNCS 6687, pp. 148156, 2011.
c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011


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incident tends to repeat for the same children over a prolonged period. Many
school-based intervention programs have been devised and implemented in an
attempt to reduce school bullying. Depending on the programm the focus can
be on bullies, victims, peers, teachers, or even on the institution. It has been observed that many of the programs have been based on commonsense ideas about
what might reduce bullying rather than on empirically- supported theories of
why children bully, why children become victims, or why bullying events occur
[2].
What makes normal conicts dierent from bullying is that in normal conicts
there is an adaptation between peers of the same social status, while in the
latter a children is repeatedely being exposed over time, to negative actions
from the part of one or more students who are perceived as stronger. Bullying
can include among others: verbal abuse, hitting, kicking, beating, destroying
others belongings or blackmail.
A range of intervention approaches have been proposed in the literature. There
has also been some proposals involving school policies and legislation; however we
believe they are unlikely to make any dierence to bullying. We believe changes
have to start at home with appropriate parenting, no tolerance for sibling bullying, training of teachers and consistent implementation of rules to deal with
bullying in school. In particular, positive modeling and teaching alternatives
to reaching high peer status is required. The above can include collaborative
working and compassionate leadership while being allowed to compete in other
settings (sport, music) or rewarding support to other students, befriending and
peer counseling schemes [7].
In the process of searching for a mechanism that helps to avoid bullying, one
of the more important references on the topic reports 26 studies of school-based
interventions. These reports included 10 curriculum based, 10 whole school interventions, 4 social skills groups, 1 regarding the mentoring of bullied children, and
1 regarding the increased availability of social worker support in the school. The
outcomes were bullying, victimization, aggression, and how schools responded to
violence. Some other outcomes often related to bullying (e.g. academic achievement, how safe children felt, levels of self-esteem, and knowledge and attitudes
about bullying) were among those used in some of the studies [6].
In this work we propose that by generating particular classroom congurations
it is possible to analyze the eect some students have on the whole class; i.e.
that specic students distributions represent dierent interaction degrees. As
expected, the number of possible congurations a classroom can adopt makes this
problem a dicult one; it is not practical or feasible to test all the alternatives.
Hence we propose a way to solve the problem unsing a non-standard combinatory
approach, i.e. we use genetic algorithms.
This article is structured as follows; the rst section is made up of the present
introduction; the second section describes the problem; the third section is devoted to genetic algorithms, while in section four we present our proposal. Section
ve is devoted to testing and results and we end with the conclusions in section
six.

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The Problem

The problem we are dealing with consists in proposing a mechanism that can
help to distribute students in a classroom, based on their potential bullying capabilities. A set of tests allows to detect some features that can be useful in
classifying students in terms of relationships; as they are seen by other classmates. In other words, based on a set of tests, we can establish which are the
specic students that have a possible negative impact on the others, and nd a
distribution, in a classroom, for minimizing this menace.
To deal with this problem we have considered real cases, taking into account
several courses in a school. After taking tests, and asking to teachers in an
independent way, results are very coincidental, in the sense that students identify
through these tests the conictive classmates, based on their own perception; and
teachers identify the same groups, based on their experience.
Tests are the tool that allows to collect input data, and once we have the
data, we are able to create a sociogram. A sociogram is a set of indexes and
graphics obtained from procedures developed for analyzing intra group relationships; aimed to measure and describe the structures of relationships underlying
in small groups. It is a kind of snapshot of a group from a particular perspective
in a specic time. It is interesting because it allows to compare dierent snapshots through time, given that every human group has a dynamic behavior. The
procedure for obtaining a sociogram is very simple; it doesnt require special
material, tests can be taken simultaneously to all group members and it takes
about 15 minutes to be completed. This technique consists of asking the students
with which particular classmates the would like to associate in a specic activity,
or, on the other side, with which of them they prefer not to meet. The idea is to
have a graphical representation of groups relationships, to visualize key points
in a graph.

Fig. 1. A typical graph showing relationships among students

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151

A typical graph is shown in Figure 1. Students are identied through

numbers and, in this particular graph, a student having a high number of indegree connections is a student that is visualized as a menace by other
classmates.
The graph generated in this way is the basis for creating a particular conguration in the classroom. In doing so, we are going to use a particular classroom
layout, but it can easily be extended for dierent situations. In this work, we
use genetic algorithms for generating dierent groups distribution, and then we
choose the one that, according to a specic criteria, represent the less conictive
conguration. After a research in existing literature, pointing to dierent ways
in which this problem is faced, we have found no references involving the use of
genetic algorithms as part of the solution to this challenge.

Genetic Algorithms

Genetic algorithms can be described as a set of algorithms taking inspiration

from the principles of natural evolution. They have been used successfully on
hard problems where other optimization methods fail or are trapped in suboptimal solutions. These suboptimal solutions are frequently found in problems in
which to explore the complete space of solutions is not possible, i.e., when the
number of alternatives to explore makes the exhaustive process not possible.
The structure of a genetic algorithm consists of a simple iterative procedure on
a population of genetically dierent individuals. The phenotypes are evaluated
according to a predened tness function, the genotypes of the best individuals
are copied several times and modied by genetic operators, and the newly obtained genotypes are inserted in the population in place of the old ones. This
procedure is continued until a solution is found [3].
Genetic operators
Dierent genetic operators were considered for this work. These genetic operators
are briey described below:
Selection. Selection is accomplished by using the roulette wheel mechanism
[3]. It means that individuals with a best tness value will have a higher
probability to be chosen as parents. In other words, those classroom congurations that are not a good representation of a less conictive one, are less
likely selected.
Cross-over. Cross-over is used for exchanging genetic material. This allows
part of the genetic information belonging to one individual, to be combined
with part of the genetic information of a dierent individual. It allows us
to increase genetic variety, in order to search for better solutions. In other
words, if we have two individuals, in this case, two dierent classroom congurations, we exchange the genetic material in such a way that part of the
rst conguration is combined with part of the second conguration. The
role of the crossover operator is to recombine information from two parent

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solutions into what we hope are even better ospring solutions. The problem is to design a crossover operator that combines characteristics of both
parents while producing a valid solution [5]. The classic crossover operator
takes a rst part from one of the parents and the second part of the new
chromosome from the other one. The problem with this approach is that for
two parents, student x can appear in the rst part of the rst parent and
in the second part of the second parent, resulting in that the same student,
take the case of student x, will appear in an ospring twice. It means that
the same student appears in a specic classroom in two dierent positions
while, as a consequence of this, some students are lost and do not appear in
the classroom layout. To overcome this problem, OX operator is used. This
operator builds ospring by choosing a subsequence of one parent chromosome while preserving the relative order of students from the other parent
[4].
Mutation. By using this genetic operator, a slight variation is introduced
into the population so that a new genetic material is created. In this work,
mutation is accomplished by randomly exchanging, with a low probability,
two particular students in a given conguration.

The Proposal

This work attempts to nd a mechanism, based on genetic algorithms, to supply

a group students distribution in a classroom in such a way that negative inuences are minimized. Dierent group distributions are going to be generated and
evaluated, the best of them is selected as the solution. A key element in this
process is the function used to evaluate dierent congurations as explained in
the following paragraphs.
The graph obtained to represent interactions in a class, is the fundamental
data we are going to deal with. The graphs have been generated through tests
and validated by teachers that know the way in which students interact in the
classroom.
It is necessary to nd a representation for the elements that we consider should
be present in the model. The basic component in this model is, as expected, the
set of students that belong to a class.
To represent students in a particular course, we ll entries in a matrix that
reects, approximately, the classroom distribution. See gure 2. Values in this
matrix represent the potential inuence that a particular student has. To illustrate this, we could say that this value corresponds to the in-degree the node
has in the graph.
The second element to take into account is a specic classroom conguration,
as shown in gure 3. This is a particular layout having ve columns and six
rows. Obviously, dierent layouts are possible, for example by including aisles
into a particular conguration. In this specic conguration we assign arbitrary
weights to dierent positions, each value representing the strength of the particular position in terms of inuence on the neighborhood.

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Fig. 2. An arbitrary students distribution

Fig. 3. An arbitrary classroom layout

When thinking on genetic individuals, we propose that one individual is represented by a new matrix, in which each entry represents the product obtained
by multiplying the values that reects de degree of inuence a student has, by
the value associated to the relative importance of a particular location in the
classroom.
To get a chromosome, in genetic terms, we proceed in two steps. First, the
chromosome is selected to be a particular classroom conguration.
In this work, we suggest that congurations that minimize the interaction for
the complete class are better that those congurations in which the inuence
of interaction is high, due to the fact that we represent in the matrix their
potentially negative behavior.
The next step is to dene the tness, i.e., the measure that will reect the
aptitude an specic individual (chromosome) has.

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Fig. 4. Neighborhood that considers direct and diagonal neighbors of a location

We have decided to propose a specic mechanism to evaluate each group distribution, that considers the degree of inuence a student presents, according to
the tests, lets denote it influence degree (ID) and the neighborhood surrounding that specic student. In doing so, for each student there is value that is
computed as follows: rst, the inuence degree for each student is the number
of incident arcs that the node representing the student has, in the graph. Second, the relevance of the neighborhood for the student is computed by adding a
value if the neighbors are direct neighbors, and a value in case of diagonal
neighbors. Direct neighbors and diagonal neighbors are illustrated in gure 4.
If a neighbor doesnt exists, the corresponding and are replaced by zero.
The third element to be considered is the relative importance of each specic
location.
So, for a specic student the nal inuence value, lets denote it FIV, is computed taking into account the inuence degree, ID, the neighborhood, and the
weight (W) of the location, as follows:
FIV = ID * W(1 + . . . + n + 1 + . . . + m ), with m, n 4
A particular group distribution will have a value, the tness for that chromosome,
that reects the summation of students for the complete class. As it reects
the (negative) inuence as a general value, the lowest value for the complete
conguration is to be considered as the best group distribution.
At this point, we have a specic value given for every student on every position
in the classroom. That is the basic chromosome we are dealing with. Now we
need to reect the most important issue in this set of relationships; the inuence
of each critical point on their neighborhood.

Preliminary Results

An arbitrary class has been selected for testing, Table 1 illustrates the way
in which the inuence degree is associated to every student in the class. It is
obtained from the graph.
Table 1. Inuence degree (ID) for each student
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 ... ... S20 S21 S22 S23 S24 S25 S26 S27 S28 S29 S30
1 12 1 2 1 7 2 5 1 ... ... 1 1 3 1 11 3 3 1 8 2 1

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Table 2 illustrates the relative importance a particular location has in the

classroom conguration. Li refers to a particular location.
Table 2. Weights associated to a particular location in the classroom
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 L9 ... ... L20 L21 L22 L23 L24 L25 L26 L27 L28 L29 L30
5 8 8 8 5 8 12 12 12 ... ... 8 8 12 12 12 8 5 8 8 8 5

Table 3 summarizes values considered for testing.

Table 3. Parameters used for testing
Item
Value(s)
Population
100, 500, 1000
Number of generations 100, 500, 1000, 5000
Crossover
80%
Mutation
0%, 2%, 5%

Values for and are arbitrary and can be modied depending on particular
constraints. Examples of results we show in this section have considered = 2
and = 1, on the students distribution shown in gure 2.
Starting from an initial arbitrary value, that corresponds to a specic students
distribution in a classroom, the genetic algorithm generates dierent students distributions, after a nite number of generations. The best solution, according to our
criteria, is the one in which critical students are located in positions in which their
inuence on the rest of classmates is diminished. Typically, those critical students
are located in the corners of the rst row, i.e. the row that is closer to the classical
teacher location. At the same time, students identied by their classmates as non
aggressive, appear in positions with higher inuence values.

Fig. 5. Fitness evolution for 1000 individuals

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L. Pedro Salcedo , M. Angelica Pinningho J., and A. Ricardo Contreras

Evolution of tness shows a convergence to a stable value after 1000 generations, as shown in gure 5. This gure shows that mutation is useful in the
sense that the stable value is reached in early stages of evolution. The upper line
represents the evolution without mutation, while the second line (closer to the
x axis) represents the evolution when using mutation.

Conclusions

Genetic algorithms have shown to be an interesting approach for solving combinatorial problems, and obtained results in this particular problem conrm this issue.
Dierent classroom congurations produce dierent tness for the chromosomes that represent solutions. Specic values for and may impact in different ways the results; so it is clear that a tunning stage is necessary for each
specic group of students, and for each dierent classroom conguration.
This proposal is currently under testing and evaluation taking into account different actors. Further steps will include penalization of undesirable individuals;
e.g, as shown in the graph in gure 1, given two students sharing a neighborhood relationship, and given they are neighbors in the resulting conguration;
the chromosome will be penalized adding an arbitrary value to its tness. Nevertheless, teachers that interact with students think that the proposed distribution
is probably a better solution for reducing the eect of an undesirable inuence
that specic students can have on the class. The cases presented to the teachers
considered the existence of two aisles, as in the real school. In these real situations, the tness value is, as expected, lower that the value obtained from the
block distribution we used to explain the core idea in this work.
Nevertheless, bullying behaviors in children are inuenced by family issues,
problems in neighborhoods, and school size. Prevention strategies should also
focus on these risk factors.

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