Research that Benefit Children and Families

When schools, families, and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school longer and like school more (National Education Association, 2013).

This topic is important to me because I have been in education for quite some time now.  I began this journey working in the public school and from there began working in early childhood and it is my opinion that parents aren’t involved the way that they should be in their child’s education and because of this children aren’t learning at their full potential. 

A synthesis research was conducted by Southwest Educational Development Laboratory that has been done over the past decade on the involvement of parents.  In their findings it showed that children tend to do better with learning, they go to school more because they are interested, they have a higher educational ranks, many go on to continue their education once graduating from high school and their social skills tend to be better with less behavioral problems and this is all because of parental involvement. 

Even in my own experiences I have found that children strive to do better because of the encouragement and involvement that they receive from their parents.  I have learned that most of the behavioral problems that I have encountered since being in the education profession were from children whose parents were less involved. 

If parents truly understood the impact that they have on their child’s learning we would have more children who would reach their full potential.  The only problem is getting them to learn and understand that it’s not all up to the professionals; they play a huge role in it as well.

Reference

National Education Association (2013).  Research Spotlight on Parental Involvement in Education Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/tools/17360.htm/

My Personal Research Journey

The subtopic that I chose for my simulation is understanding emotional development and regulating emotions.  I chose this topic because children often have problems with their emotions and sometimes find it hard or don't know how to regulate them. 

During this week I have payed close attention to the resources provided and it has allowed me to begin to get a better understanding of research and the proper steps to take when choosing a research topic.  Our text tells us that we should choose a topic that we are interested in and secondly one that others are interested in (Naughton, Rolfe, & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010) and I know one of my interest is emotional development and I believe parents and others would like to learn more on the topic. 

While constructing the research chart this week I was able to better understand some research phrases and it offered me the chance to reflect on what I have been reading this week to better understand research.  I won't deny that I knew little about it when first starting the process and I have only begun to learn what it means to look for credible and quality sources.  I believe that as this class continues I will become more knowledgeable of the research process and hopefully one day become an avid researcher. 

If there is anything that any of you can do to help me to better understand this process or if you have any ideas/suggestions or questions that you have on the topic that I have chosen I hope that you will share them with me, and I will do the same for you. 

Reference

Naughton, G. M., Rolfe, S. A., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing Early Childhood Research, 2nd Edition.  New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.