I have learned an abundance of information in this course due to the resources and research simulations. Putting together a research study requires many steps, and certain portions should be completed before others. This course has caused me to take a close look at ethical situations and the effect research can have on the participants involved.
Before starting this course, I had no idea how professional and intricate the process of research is. I have participating in professional research, but never conducted or planned any research on my own. I knew research was a lot of work, but I had no idea how many different concepts went into the planning, and how many factors you must consider when doing this planning.
I have learned that when planning research, it is essential to plan one part at a time, while keeping the whole research project in consideration. It is also essential to revisit previously developed sections to determine if changes need to be made.
Some of my challenges involved participant selection and ethical issues. Choosing participants is a struggle because the participants have to meet specific requirements. They must be parents who are currently anticipating enrollment or changes in childcare or early childhood education programs. One challenge may be if the participant makes the change prior to the completion of the data collection. If this happens, the family will not be able to participate in the study. My goal is to obtain more volunteers than necessary due specific participant requirements.
I often find myself looking at behaviors, relationships, and certain topics as possible research studies. I can now look at specific situations/topics and determine how more information regarding them could be very beneficial to the early childhood field. Knowing how to plan, design, and conduct research is a powerful tool to have as an early childhood educator, and I now feel confident in my ability to do this.
I have greatly enjoyed exploring topics and having in-depth discussion with all of you over the course of this class. I especially want to thank Dr. Davis for providing many thought provoking questions and very usable feedback with my work. I hope to see many familiar faces in our next course!
Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI too learned how difficult it can be to plan research. It is helpful to break it down into steps, but I agree that you have to also be thinnking of the big picture.
Thank you for your support and insightful posts and comments throughout this course. I hope to see you again in future classes.
I liked that the course allowed us to take it one step at a time. It really helped, because at first the thought of researching in 8 weeks was overwhelming. I see that we are not in the same course for our next class, but I am sure we will see each other in another course. Good luck with the next course.
ReplyDeleteKristen,
DeleteI truly enjoyed reading your comments throughout the course. Although, I was a little surprised about, you learning so much from this class. All of your comments seem like you really had done this type of research before. I struggle mostly with the terms. At times they I seem to mean the same things to me. I will be honest things did not start to really click for me until last week. I finally got to see how doing the charts were setting us up for our final paper. I wish, I had figured that out earlier and maybe I would have not struggled so much. The one thing I learned the most was about ethics. I never knew that when doing research you cannot ask question you to are interested in. I know this might sound funny but, I get why now it's not acceptable to do ethics. We as researchers want to at all times be true and fair and equal to our research. Thanks for all your comments and share your insights it has been truly my pleasure learning from you. Hope to see you in the next class.
Audrey
Kristen, I too found that to complete a research study, one must take it one step at a time. It was interesting to go back and see what I put down the first few weeks of this class and to see how my thought process has changed. I noticed that I was thinking in a different way and was more elaborate in my answers. Thank you for your comments and helping me to see things more clearly. I wish you the best of luck and hope to see you again in another course!
ReplyDeleteKristen, I enjoyed reviewing your blog, I am looking forward in sharing with you in this new educational journey exploring diversity..Great Blog
ReplyDeleteYours for Children;
Deborah Jones