Saturday, April 27, 2013

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.  


2 comments:

  1. Terri,
    I think we are all walking away from this course learning new ideas and changing our old ideas about research. This course was challenging at times for me but I made it through one week at a time. I enjoyed hearing your perspectives on topics and you helped me clear up information that I was unsure of. Good luck to you with your work with the Quality Rating System.

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  2. Enjoyed your post Mary Jo. I too never considered research in education. I thought it to be something that was used in the medical field in order to find answers to some medical questions or diseases and also thought it was used only for testing new medications. This was truly interesting. I wish you well in all your endeavors.

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