Wednesday, February 26, 2014

When I Think of Research......

     As I began the journey of learning about research there were many thoughts going through my
 mind.  Not being able to understand research studies was a little intimidating and I honestly didn't know a whole lot.  As we come to the completion of this course I can say that I know more now than I did starting at week 1. 

     My ideas about the nature of research hasn't changed.  Research is important, it can still be hard to understand but now I have a foundation that will allow be to be better prepared when reading research studies and when conducting my own.

     Some of the lessons about planning research that I have learned is first you have to be interested in the topic and others would need to want to know more on the topic.  A good research design is imperative as well.  I also learned to dertermine what types of research there is and differences between qualitative and quantative research, what to look for when trying to find credible sources for research and here in week 8 about equity being just and fair. Although I believe their is more to learn about research I am confident that what I have learned throughout this course will be beneficial to be as I continue on in the field of early childhood education. 

     The biggest challenge that I had during this course was refining my research topic so that I could find the best information on the topic.  I met these challenges with the help of Dr. Darragh and her providing feedback from the countless emails that I sent to her and for that I say thank you. 

    I would also like to say thank you to all of my colleagues for you feedback, from your post on blogs and in discussion board because reading your comments that were given to me and the post that you all did throughout the weeks were a big help in becoming more familiar with research. 

     Research is and always will be important in the field of early childhood education.

Thanks again for all of your support!!  Good luck in 6164!!



7 comments:

  1. Hi Latarsha!

    I really appreciated the information we received about how to read research articles. It helped me keep my mind more organized while reading articles so that I focused better and absorbed the information better. The equity information also made me more critical in my reading.

    Thanks for taking this journey with me. I hope the next class will be more like the class before this, less stressful!

    Liz Thomas

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  2. Good for you! I believe research is a lot more difficult than it looks!

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  3. Hi Latarsha,
    I can agree that you really have to be into the research in order to be equitable in getting good results. You have to be passionate about your subject area. I have enjoyed reading your comments and your discussions. I wish you all the best in your endeavors.

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  4. I agree there were times I just felt like throwing in the towel but I am determine to get to the finish line. I wish you the best of luck.

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  5. Hello Latarsha,

    I could not agree more with you in how important it is to be interested in the topic you will be researching. Even with the development of our outline in this course, we spent numerous hours researching the topic and previous studies relating to the topic. If you are not interested in the topic, then I feel as if the researcher would not be as motivated to complete a thorough study as there is not passion for the topic. I too look forward to learning more with you in our next course and look forward expanding our knowledge about the early childhood field through our collaborations together.

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  6. Latarsha,

    You wrote almost exactly what I blogged. This has been a challenging term and though I am happy this class is almost complete I still feel I needed more time to understand research more. Thanks so much for asking the additional questions during discussion that had me dig a little deeper into the subject. Good luck!

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  7. I feel that research is an important part of our profession and I am glad that I was able to take a class to learn more about research and what it takes to complete a research study.

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