Research Culmination

Research was a scary topic.Research is finding out about things (Mac Naugthon et al 2010). I consider being a detective one of my strong points but research itself came with a host of unknown properties. I didn't know how and so therefore it was intimidating and non interesting. It seemed overwhelming to understand, too varied to complete and simply left for someone else who liked data. However, I learned that with design and understanding one can tackle it with a method that can create rich, valid results for the people we serve within Early Childhood field.
I had never really thought too much about ethics in research. The field that we are studying didn't present too much ethical considerations until I understood it on a deeper level. Confidentiality and privacy being the two top ethical considerations that would be prevalent in our work. It became more clear why ethics play a role in research for early childhood.
Creating the question, then continuing to narrow it down is the beginning. Once I had that done then my work became clearer. I learned how to use triangulation to create a broader experience with reliability in outcome. Layering the methods and including other perspectives was one way that I would create the outcomes that I wanted.I learned also that types of research take different designs. Quantitative and qualitative design are meant for different experiences and desired outcomes.
My biggest challenge was narrowing the question to smaller, more measurable subtopics. This was my biggest challenge in the whole process because I had to find ONE aspect that I could prove. It had to be reliable. I would get stuck and have too many variables.
At the beginning I thought I would leave the research to the researchers but I soon realized that we all need to be able to collect data and give answers to questions. This class made it make sense. If I desire to be a professional within my field I need to understand research and how it works. I also need to become proficient in performing it as well.
                                                                      Reference
Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S., Siraj-Blatchford, I., (2010). Doing early childhood research: International

                      perspectives on theory & practice. New York: Open University Press