When I Think of Research....
Some insights I have gained about research is that research takes patience and is time consuming. I also realize that everyone does research everyday in an informal way. I have learned that research is an important tool in the early childhood field as it improves the knowledge we need when teaching young children. Research is about uncovering and enabling the emergence of new understandings, insights, and knowledge (Rolfe & Mac Naughton, 2010, p. 3). I have learned to be aware of any bias's when planning research with children and that the Ethical Standards for Research with Children has different rules and regulations to keep children safe from any type of research compared to conducting research with adults. In the field of child-based research, it is imperative that the well-being of children involved is the first and foremost priority and child-based research is typically held to stricter standards and scrutiny.
My ideas about research have changed in many ways. The first is because of the many different types of research methods; interviews, surveys, focus groups, direct observations, and experiments. Research can verify or nullify stereotypes and help researchers to have the ability to eliminate guesswork and assumptions about different concepts. Another way that my ideas about research has changed is that not all research results are always valid. When I use the elements of the process of triangulation I will have a better understanding on the study and be more confident in the results of the research. A statement about the validity of a study is a judgement about the extend to which it can be said that the research has captured important features of the field and has analyzed them with integrity (Edwards, 2010, p. 162). Integrity in research is extremely important and any contribution toward validity is a step in the right direction.
I have learned that I have difficulties narrowing down research questions but once I do narrow them down, the hypothesis comes easy for me. When I have these two "ducks in a row," I do not have any problems deciding what research method to use and how to apply these techniques. I have also learned that I should do a feasibility study to determine possible positive and negative outcomes before investing in the research.
One challenge that I had to overcome was the actual research; that is finding information and articles to fit my needs. I became overwhelmed with the amount of reading involved but I was excited to learn that I could safely skip a large portion of any research article and still know exactly what the research was all about (Lepuschitz, 2011, p. 1). Reading the abstract and introduction was very beneficial for me as it told me whether I wanted to continue reading the article. Another challenge I had was narrowing down my research question as I was always too vague when writing this question. I do believe that I will always have difficulties with this situation.
I would like to thank all my colleagues who posed some challenging questions to me in the discussions as these questions had me looking at things in a different light. Just the discussions alone were very beneficial to this course and I appreciate the resources that everyone has suggested. This course was difficult for me and I respect and value everyones opinions.
Lepuschitz, J. K. (2011). A practical guide to reading research articles. Laureate Education,
Inc. Baltimore, MD.
Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraji-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood
research: International perspectives on theory and practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hil.
