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Phi Theta Kappa Honors in Action

A research guide for the Honors in Action project completed by members of Phi Theta Kappa.

Childhood play & mental health

(Lorean, Jae, Samantha)

Theme 2: Economics of play - What are the financial, physical, and psychological costs and benefits of play?

Research question: How does childhood play impact the development and mental health of children? What are the benefits of different kinds of childhood play? (free play, group play, etc.). How are different types of play mixed to maximize the learning and skill building benefits provided to children?

(Inspiration: https://www.miracle-recreation.com/blog/role-of-play-in-the-children-mental-health/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733554/, https://buildingbetterbrains.com.au/how-play-rewires-the-brain/)

Search the Internet, use Wikipedia, or utilize one of the library's Research Starter databases to learn more about your topic and look for synonyms and related terms to use in your searches ("Pre-research").
To target government websites (for statistics or government-funded studies), add site:.gov to your Google search.
Try the Directory of Open Access Journals for peer-reviewed articles freely available online: https://doaj.org/
If RVCC does not have access to full text of a needed article, use Interlibrary Loan to get it. Ask Janelle or another librarian if you need help.

Potential keywords

anxiety	play
benefit	playground
children	positive
cognitive	problem-solving
communication	psychosocial
cooperation	reflective
creativity	relationship
depression	relax
development	role
distress	safety
emotion	self-expression
energy	self-soothing
explore	self-understanding
fear	skills
feeling	social
"free play"	stimulate
healthy	stress
language	therapy
learn	think
memory	toy
mindful	"unstructured play"
neural	wellbeing
neurobiology	worry
plasticity

Recommended Databases

Depending on the topic you choose, these databases may provide targeted access to relevant resources. Also try multidisciplinary databases listed on our databases page, or RVOneSearch on the library homepage, which searches most databases at once.

Education Database This link opens in a new window
This is a ProQuest database which includes over 1,000 full-text journals and 18,000 dissertations, supporting research on the theory and practice of education.
This database covers not only the literature on primary, secondary, and higher education but also special education, home schooling, early childhood education, and adult education. Approximately 75% of the publications included in this database are scholarly journals. The majority of the content spans from 1980-present, but there are earlier documents and articles included. Use this database in conjunction with ERIC for comprehensive education research and full-text access to some articles only cited in ERIC.
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) This link opens in a new window
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) is an authoritative database of indexed and full-text education literature and resources supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement and is administered by the U.S. National Library of Education (NLE).
It contains more than 1.6 million records and links to hundreds of thousands of full-text documents including journal articles (most of which are scholarly), books, conference papers, curriculum guides, policy papers and more. Through the EBSCO interface, it provides an education-specific thesaurus that includes controlled vocabulary.
Gale Psychology Collection This link opens in a new window
This is a Gale database that provides access to indexed scholarly journals and magazines with an emphasis placed on full-text access to articles cited in PsycINFO.
All fields of psychology are covered and as well as all major paradigms including behavioral, cognitive, psychoanalytic, biological, and developmental.
Health and Wellness Resource Center This link opens in a new window
A Gale online resource that delivers up-to-date reference material reviewed by medical experts as well as full-text magazines, journals, and pamphlets from a wide variety of authoritative medical sources.
It also provides health and medical video content from Healthology as well as current topics in the news reported by Consumer Health News.
Health Management Database This link opens in a new window
This ProQuest database is designed for researchers studying the field of health administration but is also helpful for all health sciences including nursing and ophthalmic studies with some coverage of social work and child and family welfare.
The resources cover a wide range of topics including hospitals, health protocols and studies, insurance, law, statistics, business management, personnel management, ethics, health economics, and public health administration. Full-text content is from scholarly journals, top journals, and trade publications as well as thousands of dissertations and theses including international coverage.
Psychology Database This link opens in a new window
This ProQuest database provides full-text access to leading psychology and psychosomatic scholarly publications as well as dissertations and training videos to help new students bridge theory with practice.
The content covers clinical and social psychology but also covers related topics such as genetics, the psychology of business and economics, communication, criminology, addiction, neurology, and social welfare. A good resource for psychology, human services/social work and nursing students.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
This Elsevier database provides mostly full-text access to over 14 million scientific, technical and health publications from over 3,800 journals and more than 35,000 books.
Some articles have citation and abstract information only. This is a good source for scholarly articles in nursing, psychology and the sciences.