Honors in Action

Phi Theta Kappa has an Honors Program, Honors in Action, designed to engage honors students in actions that foster student success and help fulfill our two-fold mission to:

Recognize and encourage scholarship in a lively exchange of ideas and
Develop leaders who serve their communities.

The Honors in Action Project

By participating in a chapter's Honors in Action Project, members have opportunities to apply learning and practice real--world problem-solving by developing an in-depth, action-oriented project related to research of an Honors Study Topic.

Academic research into the themes related to the Honors Study Topic is what makes Phi Theta Kappa's honors program unique and defines the difference between Honors in Action and simply action. Honors in Action is action informed by research, which makes a lasting impact and contributes to the betterment of society.

Check out the Honors in Actions page for a look at the steps involved in implementing an Honors in Action Project.

Develop Skills for Success

By engaging in Honors in Action, students develop and demonstrate skills that will serve them not only in their academic pursuits, but also in careers and life. Such skills include

Awareness of the importance of seeking multiple perspectives to enhance understanding and improve decision-making
Ability to draw research conclusions and develop ideas to make a difference
Effective planning and capabilities to initiate action
Intentional and purposeful efforts to grow leadership skills
Understanding of the need to involve others and work together
Ability to lead and manage self and others to motivate, overcome obstacles, perform in complicated environments and accomplish goals
Skills to assess progress, adjust to circumstances and measure results quantitatively and qualitatively

Applying Research to Enlighten the eSports Community About Addiction

Peer-reviewed academic papers and studies were used during research to ensure validity and reliability. To start, Nih.gov was used to search related research topics on mental health and its relationship to gaming. Studies and research by psychologists, with more appreciation as their knowledge is more expansive on mental health, were selected. These sources were narrowed down to the most essential after reviewing dozens of academic papers. Eight were selected due to relation to the research questions and attempting to find both sides of the questions to make an informed conclusion. Using scholarly sources from multiple discipline in various groups helped to widen knowledge to create a well-informed conclusion to the questions that the chapter wanted to answer.

Our research discovered that addiction is a root problem for those suffering from problematic gaming. A fundamental way to reduce this risk is to have in-person competitive and cooperative gameplay. To help combat this problem, we created an addiction awareness training PowerPoint and a survey for gamers in our sphere of influence, to gauge if they were affected by problematic gaming. Our project helped us grow as leaders and scholars, while supporting the college's new eSports program through competitive and cooperative game-play. We were also able to spread this message to other schools that may have this issue by sharing this training with other esports teams.

Objectives:

To discover the positive and/or negative effects on mental health resulting from video game playing.
To discover the type of reasonable game play has the most positive effects of any scenario.
To discover if group play can also be used as a safeguard for when a group member is at risk of problematic gaming, helping them get the assistance they need.