Research Library Users Guide

Welcome to the Research Library

The Research Library contains summaries of ​scientific literature relating to children and nature published since 2000. ​We curate peer-reviewed literature exclusively ​and update our collection ​regularly​​. Articles are ​international in scope, represent a variety of research designs, and are drawn from the professional literature of many different disciplines, including public health, urban design, education, child development, psychology, environmental psychology, conservation,​architecture​ and others.​ In addition to providing evidence of the many benefits of connecting children to nature, articles also address issues relating to special populations (children with special needs, immigrant populations, etc.) and barriers to nature engagement (fear of nature, safety concerns, etc.).​

Each entry in the Research Library, in addition to a summary, includes the full citation, the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) when available, and a brief headline (a main conclusion from the article). The summary generally includes the purpose or aim of the study, information about the methods used in conducting the study, the primary results or findings, and a brief conclusion. The location of the study, the population involved, and data collection procedures are typically included in the discussion about the research design. The citation and DOI are provided as a way to access the original publication. Clicking on the DOI link will bring you directly to the published article if open access, or to the abstract on the publisher’s website if not open access. For copyright reasons, we are unable to provide you with links to the original articles published in journals that are not open access. Some articles don’t have DOIs. In that case, googling the article’s title will likely direct you to the article on the publisher’s website.

Access the Research Collection

SEARCHING FOR ARTICLES

Using Tags for Your Search:

Scientific articles have been “tagged” to help you find the research you are most interested in.

To use the tag search function, click on a button in the filters menu or scroll to see the search categories and subcategories. Click on a subcategory to expand the view and see search tags. Check the tags you would like included in your search. Within each subcategory, you have a choice to search for studies that include all the tags you checked (the “AND” choice) or to search for studies that include any one or any combination of tags you checked (the “OR” choice). Be careful in your decision. Choosing “AND” may result in no studies identified in your search because your combination of tags does not exist or is impossible. For example, you might have no results returned in a search in which you’ve chosen both “birth outcomes” and “physical fitness” tags under the Physical Health Outcomes subcategory because physical fitness is not an outcome of nature engagement measured in newborns. In choosing “AND” make sure that you indeed want only studies that include all of the tags you selected under a particular subcategory. Use of “OR” can be tricky as well. Choosing OR after clicking “birth outcomes” and “physical fitness” will return all studies that were tagged “birth outcomes” and all studies tagged as “physical fitness.” That may be exactly what you want if you want to avoid running separate searches for each outcome, but be aware of the consequences of this choice. Note that when you select tags in multiple categories (such as Population, Method and Outcome) the search will use “AND.” You only have the choice of “AND” and “OR” within a subcategory.

Keyword Search:

Instead of, or in addition to, searching by tags, you can also enter a word or phrase in the keyword search box and the search function will seek articles that include your keyword(s) or phrase in the article’s title or in C&NN’s summary of the article. If you have also checked tags, the search function will return articles that are tagged as you have indicated as well as the keyword.

Clarifications for Search Tags:

Some tags may not be self-explanatory. Here are a few that we know can be tricky:

  1. Participatory Research/Design under the Methods subcategory of Study Designs vs. Engaging Communities/Lifting Voices under Themes – The distinction here may be best described in terms of the role played by the participants involved in the research. If people participating in the study (the participants) serve as co-researchers in some capacity – including citizen science and photovoice — Participatory Research/Design under Methods would be tagged. If a major focus of the study is on bringing forth the “voices” (opinions, perceptions, experiences, or recommendations) of a specific group (e.g., teachers, parents, youth, indigenous, etc.), Engaging Communities/Lifting Voices under Themes would be used.
  2. Wellbeing/happiness under the Outcome subcategory of Mental Health Benefits – refers to an overall sense (or mental state) of wellness. A mental state is more than a momentary feeling.
  3. Attention Skills vs. Attention Restoration under the Outcome subcategory of Cognitive Function – This distinction is best illustrated by an example: Studies that measure attention or distractibility on a natural setting would be tagged with Attention Skills. Studies that invoke the Attention Restoration Theory, or otherwise measure how attention function is restored after a nature break, would be tagged with Attention Restoration.
  4. Attention Restoration under the Outcome subcategory of Cognitive Function vs. Restoration under the Outcome subcategory of Mental Health Benefits – The distinction here is about cognitive vs. emotional demands. If the study is about how attention function is restored in nature, it would have been tagged with the Attention Restoration tag. If the study is about how people feel restored in nature, it would have been tagged with Restoration.
  5. Executive Function (including self-regulation) under the Outcome subcategory of Cognitive Function vs. Emotional Regulation or Reduced Behavior Problems under the Outcome subcategory of Social/Emotional Function – studies that are more about cognitive control (off task, inhibitory control, or measured by a cognitive task) would have been tagged as Executive Function. Studies discussing findings of emotional outbursts or better or worse control over emotional expressions would have been tagged Emotional Regulation. Studies that report, for example, that students who tend to display problematic behaviors in the classroom show fewer of those behaviors when learning outdoors would have been tagged with Reduced Behavior Problems.
  6. Perceived Agency/Efficacy/Competence under the Outcome subcategory of Efficacy vs. Self-Esteem under the Outcome subcategory of Social/Emotional Function – The distinction here rests, in part, on the difference between thinking and feeling or cognition and emotion. Perceived Agency/Efficacy/Competence involves cognition; it’s a judgment or belief about one’s ability to effect change or execute a task. The statement “I can do this” reflects agency/efficacy/competence. Self-esteem involves emotion as well as cognition. It includes beliefs and feelings about oneself.  The statement, “I am a courageous person” reflects self-esteem.
  7. Play Behaviors and Styles under Outcomes – how children play in nature or how play changes in nature-based settings or programs vs. non-nature-based settings or programs.
  8. Spirituality – feeling a sense of awe of nature as part of the universe, or feeling a part of something “bigger,” is the usual connotation. But this tag is also used for studies that report on empathy, meaning cognitive or emotional relatedness to either humans or other-than-humans, and caring, meaning taking care of Earth because it is worthy of respect.
  9. Sustaining Participation in Nature under the Outcome subcategory of Utilization of Nature – Maintaining one’s participation in outdoor or nature-based activities from younger years to older years, or simply across some period of time.
  10. Implication for Design, Planning or Policy – this tag is used for studies that are specifically about nature-based design, planning (such as urban planning or park planning) or development or implementation of policies facilitating nature contact. It is also used when study authors discuss the implications of the research findings for designers, planners or policy makers even if the study is not about these topics specifically.
  11. Social capital – connections among people that enable shared norms and values and that facilitate cooperation among individuals or groups.
  12. Social Justice is a search term option under both Outcomes and Themes. This is because the results of a study, for example, may point to improved outcomes for disadvantaged groups or a narrowing of a disparity. We would have tagged Social Justice as an outcome of this study. Some studies are couched in terms of social or environmental justice; it’s the reason the study was conducted, the authors set the study in the context of prior research on justice, etc. We would have tagged Social Justice as a theme of this study. It’s not uncommon for us to tag Social Justice as both an outcome and a theme.

A similar outcome/theme situation exists for physical activity, obesity, and community social capital. The reason for this seeming duplication is of course related to the above explanation of the difference between outcome and theme tags, but also because we added the category of Themes to allow users to find research that represents important themes or trends we were seeing in the literature, without removing the option of searching for a specific outcome.

Speaking of trends, there are some ways to find interesting trends in the research other than through the Themes search terms, if you know what you are looking for. Most importantly, researchers are paying increasing attention to the possibility that nature may be relatively more beneficial for those most disadvantaged or at risk, suggesting that nature contact may be a strategy to narrow health or educational disparities or otherwise achieve justice aims. You are likely to find these studies if you check Economically Disadvantaged Populations under Special Populations under the Population category. You may also see them when you search for the Outcome or Theme of Social Justice, particularly if the population was not economically disadvantaged, but had other characteristics placing them at risk or at a disadvantage.

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