This database, available through the University Libraries, makes for an excellent starting point for research into mindfulness. PsycINFO provides authoritative information as recognized by the American Psychological Association. While primarily focused on psychology and behavioral sciences, the database contains a robust collection of literature on mindfulness-based interventions for college students. Searching in PsycINFO may not be intuitively user-friendly, so consider trying out some of the search strategies recommended below.
Full text covering information concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry and psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods.
The Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection contains a treasure trove of scholarship on mindfulness. The particular focus on emotional and behavioral health offers highly specific and more relevant literature. This database would best serve students who have an existing interest in mindfulness-based interventions. While not a requirement to use the database, background knowledge in mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), or meditation will be helpful when navigating the results. In short, this is a great resource, but not for beginners.
Find full-text articles and citations for journals, books, conference papers, curriculum guides, dissertations, and policy papers in all areas of education. Available on the EBSCO platform.
Tip: On this platform, you may filter by full-text directly from the results page.
ERIC, or the Education Resources Information Center, stands out as a key database for students interested in education. ERIC contains a modest amount of literature on mindfulness for college students. What it may lack in quantity compared to PsycINFO or Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, ERIC makes up for in accessibility. One does not need extensive background training in psychology to make use of the articles within. Students enrolled in programs in Educational Counseling and Psychology or Education Policy and Leadership will find this resource invaluable.
Items in a database contain metadata which allows for ease of retrieval. This metadata, however, would not function properly if there were no agreed-upon terms. The Library of Congress maintains a list of Subject Headings which acts as a thesaurus for searching. These are a few of their recommended search terms for mindfulness:
Mindfulness (Psychology)
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
In-the-moment (Psychology)
Attention
Awareness
As well as for college students:
Database searching may feel like learning a foreign language. That is totally understandable! Your friendly neighborhood librarians are happy to help with your search terms. Let's begin with Boolean Operators: AND, OR, NOT. These "operators" allow you to tell the database exactly how to search. Let's say you want results related to mindfulness and it's effects on college students. You would search:
Mindfulness AND College students
What if you want to exclude freshmen from the results--sorry my first-year friends! You would have something like this:
Mindfulness AND College students NOT freshmen
If you think you're coming up short on results, you may want to try using truncations and wildcards using the symbols * and ?.
For example, if you type mindful* into the database, you are telling it to pull any key words that begin with "mindful" and may include mindfulness, mindfully, or some other permutation. The * symbol is a truncation and essentially fills in the rest of the word for you. If you try that with Educat* you will pull results for education, educate, educated, educationally, and myriad other.
The wildcard symbol ? may not be used as frequently as truncations, but it helps by filling in the blanks in the middle of a word. For example, freshm?n will pull results for freshmen and freshman.
These search strategies may seem difficult, but don't worry--you can always contact me or another one of my colleagues for assistance!
