My Reflection on Research in the Early Childhood Field

For the last eight weeks, I have studied about research in the early childhood field, and as a result learned a great deal about research from the terms used to how to plan a research project.  In addiition to planning research, I have learned valuable information about researching topics on the internet and how to determine whether or not a website and the information was reliable.  I have also learned how to read research papers with more ease and comprehension.  

Often during the last two months, I have found myself thinking about research duriing my everyday work.  I often find myself  thinking "that would make a good research question" and asking myself "would I use a quantitative or qualitative approach to studying that question?"      Before taking this class, I considered research as something that was completed by scientists and not early childhood professionals.  I now realize that early childhood professionals have the ability to gather information and conduct research projects that can provide valuable insight into the field of early care and education.  

International Research

This week I reviewed European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) website. at http://www.eecera.org/journal/ to answer the following questions:   

What are some of the current international research topics?  It was interesting to learn that many of the same topics that researchers and early childhood professionals are researching in the United States are also being examined in other countries.  The issues of transitioning children, school readiness, the professionalism of child care, access and quality are being examined. 

What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website?  While reviewing the website, I found a study that was completed in Greece about Parent Perceptions of Quality in Early Childhood programs.  The study compared the results of the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale Parent Questionairre (ECERSPQ) with the results of the ECERS-R  that was completed by trained professionals.  The study was large with over 500 parents participating.  The results found that in general parent's perceived the program as being a higher quality than the trained observers.  I was very interested in the ECERSPQ as a way to study parent perceptions of quality.   A brief search for more information about this tool did not yield results.  However it gave me some ideas to use as part of the research simulation on parent perceptions of quality in early care and education. 

 What other noteworthy information did you find on this website?  The access to the journal articles on the website provided another source of information for my studies.  It was a great to find these journal articles.