When I Think of Research...

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!