I have gained a great deal from this course, from learning
the ethics of research to the actual design research takes on, this course has
opened my eyes in a different way to the concept of research. I feel it has proved to be a crucial part of
making early childhood education both successful and meaningful as well.
Before entering this course, I cringed at the idea of
research. I was so worried and nervous
about taking this course and all that would come with it. I have to admit, the course has changed my
view of research. While this was not an
easy course by any means, the work I put into it made me feel more successful
and confident in my ability to conduct research in meaningful ways.
When planning research, I learned it is important to narrow
your ideas into one simple subtopic that will lead to many different outcomes
with the same result. Designing a
research simulation takes a lot of time and planning to make sure it will be
implemented correctly. And conducting
research has it limitations in reference to ethics, but as long as consents are
there, conducting the research can be done in a variety of ways including
observations and interviews.
One challenge that I encountered was gaining an
understanding of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of design in
research. I found this challenging
because understanding and applying the differences between the two was
sometimes tricky since they are quite similar.
I found that last week, we really dug deep into these concepts and I
gained better insight into what the meaning of each was and learned that they
actually are very different and play an important role in research. I also found that putting my thoughts about
my own personal research simulation were sometimes challenging because I had so
many ideas but many of them were not in the terms of what we were learning
about. Rereading course material really
helped me overcome this challenge.
I learned that research is more than simply applying
knowledge on a topic to a research paper or article. It takes massive planning and implementing of
the plan to make the research work. From
developing a topic (or hypothesis) to conducting the interviewing or
observations, research is not an easy and quick task. It takes passion of the topic and motivation
of the researcher to make it successful and useful in the real world.
THANK YOU everyone for the input and insights you have given
me throughout this course. We have
completed a task many fear and have learned a great deal from one another about
research!
