week 8

WHEN I THINK OF RESEARCH

Looking back to the beginning of this course and how anxious I was about learning more about research; especially in the early childhood field. Now, there is a sigh of relief that a lot has change and those changes have been positive towards accomplishing my research goal

The major insights I have gained about research from taking this course is that research is important and necessary in order to bring about change or improvement in our role and services to children, families and the early childhood field

-research should be based on our areas of interest and be based on our utmost commitment

 -availability of resources and limitations should always look into before embarking on any research project

-conducting thorough readings on previous or similar research  gives insights to how to present and address our research

-planning on how, when, who and what would be used to collect and analyze data should be should be outlined in order to serve as a guide towards the research process.

-issue of ethics and equity are vital in any research; consent must be given and participants must be recognized, respected and represented appropriately

-methods of data collection should be clearly decided and defined

-validity in research is important, if research is to serve its purpose and there are several approaches to ensure it. Example through triangulation

-The goal of research should be the one that is of great benefit

Initially I had fears with the thought of research, but with the approach adopted in learning about research, I feel more confidence towards embarking on my research project.

-understanding the concepts and expressing them in my own words as made me have a clearer picture of the key factors in research

- Step-by step process we took in designing the research simulation really made me understand the processes involved in conducting a research study.

now I know that,it requires commitment,understanding of key components as well as step-by-step planning.

The lesson about planning, designing and conducting research in the early childhood field is:

-That one need to consider an area of interest, resources and duration of time, and acquire knowledge and training essential to research

-That in Designing a research, one needs to have a well laid plan that would not be deviated from, which would act as guideline, information on the whole process of the research should be carefully arranged which might take some time if one hope to achieve success (areas such as research interest, researchable questions or hypothesis, research design(qualitative, quantitative or mixed method)data collection methods, participants and their characteristics, analysis of data, validity and reliability of data.)

-That ethical concerns and equity issues are essential to any successful research in the early childhood field

The major Challenges I encountered as to do with designing my population sample; which I still need to look into. My participants are majorly preschool students but my concern is indirectly I would be forced to separate male from female, Saudi Arabia‘s educational structure does not permit boys and girls together in school., I guess I might have to see classification as part of the extraneous variables and try as much to focus mainly on my research issue.

My perception of an early childhood professional has being modified to see how early childhood professionals can also contribute meaningfully to knowledge and improvement in providing quality services through conducting research

And that research in early childhood considers ethics and equity as an important early childhood professionals are not just capable of contributing effectively through research but it is done with the utmost concern for the welfare of its participants as well as providing truthful outcomes. Therefore, as early childhood professionals dealing with children we need to put ethical and equity issues at the initial stage or conceptualization, and applying throughout the process as well as in the findings and conclusions

In conclusion, this course has really made a significant impact on me as regards preparing and conducting a research. It has been insightful and educative. I know, there is still more to learn, but I am ready to challenge myself further.