Doing Early Childhood Research

I am in my final week of Doing Early Childhood Research. My course is about to come to a close and I have a newfound respect for early childhood research and researchers. I have gained many insights into early childhood research as a result of taking this course.

Ways in which my ideas about the nature of doing research have changed are that I realize research is a very involved, complicated process. In the past, I was naïve enough to believe that it was as simple as asking a question, making some observations and coming to some personal conclusions. I learned that there are generally two types of research: deductive research and inductive research. Deductive research is when the researcher develops a hypotheses, tests it and the results are based in data (Mac Naughton, Rolfe & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010 pp. 364-365) whereas inductive research is when researchers do not go in with any preconceived ideas and simply make observations and try to explain human behaviors or why we do the things we do, how we relate to one another, etc.

I discovered that research should be: ethical, purposeful, well designed, transparent, contextualized, credible, careful, imaginative and equitable (Mac Naughton, Rolfe & Siraj-Blatchford, p. 10).

The lessons I have learned about planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood are again, that the process takes a lot of planning and forethought. Personal biases can influence research and results and there are many considerations to take into account. I also learned that my personal interests should guide my research and that most researchers are simply asking questions that they want answers to.

The one thing that made an impression on me was treating children with respect with regard to research. In the past, asking the parent’s permission seemed enough with respect to researching children. This perspective has changed. I feel that I have always shown respect to little children and that is part of the quality teaching of a good early childhood educator. However, asking their permission and thoughts on whether or not they want to participate in the research was a new idea for me.

Some of the challenges I encountered in this course was simply understanding the jargon with regard to research during my course reading. I had to read and re-read material. I had to look up words in the Glossary, Dictionary and Google terms and ideas. I also read additional research that might have related to what I was reading so that I could get a better handle on the text.

Some of the ways my perceptions of an early childhood professional have been modified as a result of this course are that early childhood professionals are not simply babysitters or even just teachers. I also realize that hundreds of early childhood professionals, teachers and researchers have gone before me to help put into place the many ways in which we understand children, relate to them, teach them and learn from them.

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.