I am proud to say that this course has come to an
end. I did not allow the difficult research jargon to scare me away; even
though at times that is what I wanted to do.
Before I began this course I had an understanding of the impact that it
has on the field of early childhood as well as many other professional domains.
Research is a great tool that helps us answer important questions about early
childhood by gaining understanding, insights, and knowledge. How to complete the process was my hurdle.
Not until I began to learn more week by week did I understand the processes
that were involved in compiling and completing research. One of the chapters
that provided me with great insight on completing research was chapter seven,
design issues. It discussed the process
of planning and designing research. Research design was defined as a set of
procedures developed to guide an entire study, from formulating research
questions to disseminating results (Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraj-Blatchford, I.
2010). During this phase of research a researcher
clarifies, refines and identifies their specific topic. The researcher then
moves forward with selecting design options, such as experimental,
quasi-experimental and non- experimental. During the design process it is
important to address the dimensions of time, considerations of retrospective
and prospective approaches; those will participate, sampling options, and data
collection options. Research design is very essential to completing a
successful research study. The research design process was the most difficult
for me. There were great difficulty in refining my topic and generate questions
that would provide a quality research that would be beneficial to others. To
overcome this challenge it required me to do a little studying and
investigating resources that helped me narrow my topic down and formulate a
research that I discovered would be research able and benefit others.
Reference
Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., &
Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research: International
perspectives on theory and practice (2nd ed.). New
York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Hi Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteLearning about the design process of a research study also helped me to understand how much detail is needed to make sure the study will have validity. It made me realize the importance of being organized and aware of what details are important such as knowing what types of data will be used and how to record it.
Through the research study outline I was able to get an idea of what a research design entails and learned that, though it is a very involved process, the basics are not above the heads of those who are new to research (such as many in this class!) I, too, found it difficult to refine my interest to a single research question that was beneficial to others. I found the literature review process early on really helped me to narrow my focus. Thank you for your insights and discussion posts throughout this class!
ReplyDeleteHi Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right with so many of your points. The first is that research can be so daunting to so many people, but you have to approach it as with any other topic or level of academia. Stemming from that, you are right in that almost every piece of literature we utilize for the early childhood field is the result of some type of research. How would we be able to obtain information, otherwise? I think research is so intimidating to many because there are steps you must take to ensure the validity, credibility and ethical guidelines; one misstep and everything you've worked so hard for could be wasted. I think that can be a difficult prospective for many to realize and to come to the realization that all of the hard work and studying could be considered null and void all because of one seemingly minor issue.