Taking
this course, Building Research Competencies, I have gained immensely, learning
about many things that I never knew before. I would say that this course is ‘Research made
easy’. To mention just a few, I can now:
analyze research article, distinctly differentiate between quantitative and
qualitative research, analyze the process involved in research, define some of
the terms used in research parlance, develop hypothesis from a research
question, define and apply some of the ethics involved in research, determine
the appropriate research approach to use out of the two usual ones and the third
new one called the Mixed-method design, etc.
My idea about the nature of doing research has greatly
changed having gained various insights about research, especially with the
knowledge of the process in research. The
insight gained from analyzing of research design, that is, planning the whole
research even before it starts, that is, knowing what the research is set out
to achieve, considering the time that will be involved in the implementation of
the research, the type of research approach that will be appropriate for the
research and deciding whether hypothesis is applicable, the participants that
will be involved, and so on.
Concerning planning in early childhood research, I learnt
that proper planning prevents eruption of challenges. The planning includes the consideration of
what the research will be based on, how, where and when the research is to take
effect, who the participants will be, what type of data will be needed for
collection, and the type of data analysis that will be appropriate in order to
get a thorough result on the research study. Designing in early childhood research is the
process of turning a research idea into a set of decisions about the practical
movement of the research from one process to another. Conducting research in
early childhood is the actual usage of the appropriate approach in collating
data from selected participants towards understanding a particular research
topic.
Some of the challenges I encountered in this course is in
getting the proper definition of some terms and gaining an in-depth knowledge
of the terms. I was able to access the
library and other websites in order to get more information on such terms;
also, I was able to gain more understanding through the various class
discussions and the instructors responses to some of the posts. Changing the Black board and the classroom
made the starting point very critical, but after some weeks of more usage I became
more familiar with the navigation round the classroom, even though I cannot
claim perfection now.
This course has further strengthen my belief in an early
childhood professional as the course analyze the efforts of the professionals
in truly being the voice of the children and through various researches, going
more deeper into understanding the ways of children, their feelings on the
treatment being meted out to them at various instances, and actually involving
children in the participation in their study research.
Suffice it to say that whatever insight I gained
was through the constructive contributions from my colleagues, therefore, I would
pause here to say a big THANK YOU to you all, for without you I might not have
been able to acquire so much in this course.