When I think of Research....

Research had always been a topic that cause squirm among the lots of us. I know it had made me squirm one too many times. Since I took the course that focuses on research, I find that it is essential for all of us to practice and build our research competencies. We often become uncomfortable with research, because we do not have extensive knowledge or resources to utilize. After taking this course, the ideas I possessed of the research changed from prestigious to common.  What I meant by that is the fact that research often accompanies an image of a person with certain status and intelligence to perform research. However, I learned that any one can perform research as long as s/he has the goal and motivation to complete the entire work.

Research requires careful plan and detailed designs. Research certainly takes time to develop. One has to be able to visualize the focal point of the research. Otherwise, it flops. Planning, designing, modifying, or maintaining research absolutely requires a lot of organizing skills. One has to be willing to remain abreast of the progress until it reaches completion. The challenges I encountered while learning about research were being able to comprehend qualitative and quantitative. Understanding how a method functions takes addition efforts. Also, it takes a lot of practices and extensive knowledge to determine which approach to pursue and develop solid research.

At last, learning abut research helped me understand how important it is to develop ideas and verify the results that may or may not improve Early Childhood Education, Early Childhood professionalism, and many others that are involved in Early Childhood Education field.  Our lives are constantly undergoing the changes. Therefore, it is necessary to appreciate and show gratitude toward the researchers who work hard to find proofs that can easily change our lives for better or worse.

Research Around the World

Research around the world is amazing and unending learning experience. For this assignment, I decided to explore European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA): This international early childhood organization publishes a well respected journal. All back issues are accessible from this site and are fully searchable without charge.
http://www.eecera.org/

Here is what I discovered:

1. The current international research topics focused on how to teach and to learn for both teachers and children, the influence of play on children (especially with adults attitudes), and how children's cortisol increases or decreases. 

2. What surprised me was how common the topics are across the world. The world wide commons show that "we" are struggling to present a final proof of what we can do to "fix" the problems. Exploring an international website helped me to realize that there are common research topics that I could follow and compare to learn more about the impacts on children in other countries than United States. Then I could compare the results between a country and United States to see if there is any particular reason for the differences or similarities. 

Yet, there are research topics that focus on children of the conflicted (ie: religion conflicts, war, etc). Because we, who reside in United States, have not yet experienced or record some topics focusing on children of the conflicts. This led me to wonder if the civil war in United States had huge impact on children's developments. Unfortunately, this was more than 100 years ago.   

3. A newsworthy information that I discovered was the conference. I did not realize there is a conference for researchers. EECERA provides annual conference. It sounds very curiosity.  Other than its curiosity, conferences offer tremendous supports to researchers by discussion, build relationship, and unity. I think these are excellent qualities to offer.