When I Think of Research...

I have gained many new insights from taking this course in these eight weeks that we were given. In the beginning of this course, I was introduced to studying and analyzing scholarly research articles, searching for my own and developing a research topic of my interest and breaking that main topic down into three sub-topics and choosing only one specific subtopic of interest from there. Although this was just the forefront in conducting research, I feel that becoming aware of the potential risks and ethics to be aware of were very beneficial insights to me. My ideas about the nature of doing research have drastically changed after learning of proper protocol and procedures to follow before attempting to conduct a research study. From the choosing of participants, sampling and choices of collecting data are all vital and must be properly thought through before beginning. Permission must first be allowed from participants, along with mentioning all possible risks.

  I learned that the process of conducting a research design first begins with suggesting a topic of interest for research. This topic would generally be one that makes a point to a specific idea of interest and can be studied for further investigation to retrieve results that reflect the design. The second step in conducting a research design is figuring out exactly how the design will be conducted and what will be the focus of the design. “Research cannot be well designed unless what is to be researched is clear.” (Naughton et al 2010 p105). Next is refining the topic and breaking that one topic into a series of several sub-topics, placing them in the order that is similar to the order of processing and determining whether these topics are considered observational or experimental and whether they lend themselves to be formulated into a hypothesis (the ability to make an educated guess on the topic). Next is the careful review of the time the study and who is to participate, in means of the past, present and future and the ages of the participants. The selection of participants for the study and understanding whether random sampling is necessary or not is vital in the process of collecting data and analysis. Once the data is collected, which is often very little means of resources, pilot testing is performed to determine whether the implementation of the designed has the ability to be successful or not

Some of the challenges I encountered were Processing and analyzing data and selecting persons to participate. Although processing and analyzing data seemed as a tedious task, I was quite relieved to find that all research is not mandatory to be correct and can also be a defect cause from the design or hypothesis of the intended question of the research. Incorrect data can sometimes lead to the findings of new information that one had no knowledge of before. I have gained a better outlook on this process.

  I would believe that it takes choosing participants that fit the description of the intended purpose of a design, but had a difficult time understanding exactly how the concept of sampling for some designs could still conduct accurate researching and results. I did not agree with the process of stratified random sampling at first after understanding that these designs were performed using uneven amounts of participants. But after understanding that the use of sampling of uneven participants always used the greater number of participants for the groups of participants that were the primary focus of the design, and  ensuring that those groups were both still equally represented and considered as a random sample helped me to understand more.

My perceptions of an early childhood professional have been modified throughout this course due to the fact that I am now fully aware that studies are able to be conducted to enhance the betterment of classrooms and education in the early childhood field. With results and findings of these successfully conducted studies could have a major positive impact on students, families, teachers and administrators in the early childhood education field.