When I Think of Research

Research can be used for many good things, and seen from many different view points.  There are standards that are in place to make sure that the participants are protected and that privacy is to be taken seriously.  There are all kinds of way to carry out studies and do research programs, but the goal is to help paint a clear picture and help someone out on the other end.  I learned that all studies should be able to pass a test of feasibility, reflexivity, and validity(Mac Naughton,Rolfe, & Siraj-Blatchford,2010). The test can be carried out from different forms of triangulation.

I have learned that I must know myself and my subject I order to give a true picture of the study and how I have come to the conclusion that I have reached, I also know that from step one you must make sure that you keep true to the participants and the method(s) in which you have chosen to go with. Follow the path that you set out to do and don't get caught in extraneous variables.

A challenge for me was getting my research question stated correctly.  It takes some fine tuning to get that stated correctly.  We as early childhood educators can sever our children in many different ways and to do the research to help them out is just another avenue to do so.

Good Luck with your future studies!  It has been a pleasure to read your post and hope that we met again.  Thank you for the feed back during this class.

Research Around the World

The Early Childhood Australia website was interesting to look at.  I wanted to read an article about Tony Abbott who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Australian House of Representatives, the article was Tony Abbott misses the point on early childhood education and care reform.  I wanted to know what his stand was on early childhood education and care reform.  Another topic that was covered was challenges of implementing primary arts education and what the teachers had to say.  The topic that I thought would be of interest was Early childhood teachers misconception about mathematics education for young children in the United States.  I thought that it would be interesting to see how I can see this from a different point of view.  Looking at it as a student and then as an American looking at what Australians think about American students and teachers. The article talks about 9 misconceptions about teaching children math here in the United States.  I was surprised by some of the ideals that they listed.  There were many questions that came to mind from taking this course, who were the participates and how did they gather their data.  To briefly tell you about the misconception I will just run down the list.  1. young children are not ready for math education, 2. math is for some bright kids, 3. simple numbers and shapes are enough, 4. language and literacy are more important than math, 5. teachers should provide an enriched physical environment, step back and let the children play, 6. math should not be taught as a stand-alone subject matter, 7. assessment in math is irrelevant, 8. children learn math only by interacting with concrete objects, and the last 9. computers are inappropriate for teaching and learning of math. As I was reading I could see where these ideals came from, it was stated that they did research in different way, interviews, and workshops, it did not say where the teachers where from.  I admit I am one of those people that does not like math and there seems to be a larger number of teachers that math is not their favorite subject either. One thing that I read that really caught my eye was " Teacher's were cautioned that purposefully teaching mathematics was unnecessary, inappropriate, or even harmful to young children(e.g. Elkind, 1981, 1998)".  Is that a true statement?

Politics is the same everywhere. I had to go to Google and read about Tony Abbott I did not find the article about what his views are on early childhood education,  I just found out that his wife had to defend him about his view on women and their issues.  Sound familiar?  The issues seem to be the same the world over.