When I Think of Research…
I want to start by saying this has been a challenging course for me. I knew next to nothing about doing research before I began this course so the insights that I gained are too much to write in this paper. I learned that there are different methods of research quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. I learned that there are different methods of choosing the participants that are in the research study. I found it interesting that in quantitative research researchers perform experiments and get facts that are numeric related while qualitative gives the meaning or understanding of the study (Mac Naughton, Rolfe, & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010). If researchers mix the methods they could get a complete picture with a numeric experiment with meaning and understanding. I guess you would say a full story of the research study.
I understand more about research and the process of doing a research study. The simulation that we did during this course has helped to build my understanding. Research is challenging and hard work. I understand more about research that I am comfortable about reading and conducting literature reviews.
Designing a research study takes time to gather the question and to decide what method of research to use. Deciding who the participants that are needed and how researchers decide their sampling is a step that I never considered. Conducting research is a challenge for me however I feel that with practice research designs would be less challenging.
Writing a research question that was simple enough to be conducted in a single resource study was challenging. I feel that my research questions have been very broad; however I learned that in a qualitative study the researcher question can be broader then in a quantitative study. The quantitative research question needs to have a cause and effect that can be turned into an experiment. This whole course has been challenging for me. Learning a lot about research and the ways to design a research study is a challenge in itself.
My perceptions of early childhood professionals are still held highly. I have found a new perspective of researchers in the early childhood field. Research is continuously needed to improve the early childhood field. This research benefits children and early childhood educators by giving new information that is needed to increase the learning and development of young children.
Finally, I would like to thank all my colleagues for their support, feedback, and sharing of their knowledge. I have learned a lot about research with your help and I thank you. I would also like to thank Dr. Barbara Walker for stepping in, not making a bunch of changes for the course, and for your responses and feedback. I appreciate your assistance in this course.
Luci
