When I Think of Research...

   Through this course of Building Research Competency I have gained so much more knowledge than I had originally learned through other courses. I have gained many insights such as bias in research, risks, and even the types of research that can be conducted and what might fit best depending on what knowledge a researcher wants to gain. My ideas about the nature of doing research haven't necessarily changed but I feel they have expanded. Since I did not have as much knowledge prior to this course I feel that I gained more rather than having change my ideas. I now understand more about what has to happen and how much has to go into a research study.

   As far as planning, designing, and conducting research I have gained more knowledge and understand more about this. I know that planning takes time and that research questions have to be very specific. I have learned that designing a research study takes time because there are many factor that have to be considered. Risks, participants, limits, and research type all have to be considered when designing a research study. I have learned more about conducting a research study by seeing the types of methods that can be used. I have learned more about observations and interviews with participants and that the research sometimes needs to remain as uninvolved as possible.

   When constructing my research simulation I did encounter some challenges. One challenge that I encountered was trying to find a research question. I found it hard at first to be specific and very narrow in my question. I did find that once I was able to be specific I could see that it was necessary when designing the rest of the research. It made it much easier to design the other specific factors that went along with the research. From taking this course I have learned more about early childhood professionals that have to conduct research. I have not previously learned from the perspective of a researcher and now that I have taken this course I understand that in a way any professional in the field can be a researcher. This course has definitely expended my knowledge about the field and early childhood professionals.

Research Around the World

   I chose to look into the website of Early Childhood Australia. Upon entering the site I looked into their own work to see what projects are going on. One project I saw was the Australian Early Development Census resources (AEDC) Project. This project is to promote and demonstrate the data found to inform programming, planning and development to Kindergartens and day cares. Another resource that I stumbled upon was the Research in Practice series. This provides an index for practical and effective approaches to the early childhood field. It has valuable resources that have been made possible by research to assist in the care and education of young children.

   Some insightful information that I found was their Code of Ethics. It was interesting to see another country's code of ethics for early childhood. I was able to read some of it and can see many connections with our own Code of Ethics in early childhood. I was also very interested to see that in their code of ethics, there is a specific part for allowing children to play as a process and context for learning. They also have a special section for research in the early childhood field.

   There were plenty of noteworthy information that was on the website. One section I found very informative was their publications section. In this section I feel that there are plenty of ways to find valuable resources and research in the early childhood field. From magazines, newsletter, journals, and books there are plenty of options to find out more about early childhood in Australia and from around the world. I enjoyed searching through the Early Childhood Australia website and found it a valuable source for international information on early childhood.

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/