When I think of research

Before this course, I did not believe that I can conduct any research. I did not know any skills or knowledge of planning, designing or conducting a research project. However, after this 8-week-course, I have the knowledge and skills about the research, and I am able to have my own research simulation going on. I am very proud of myself, and I really appreciate the guidance for the professor, and the support from my colleagues. 

I used to think research is so hard that I have to be a full time researcher to be able to do it. Now I realize that as long as we know the rules and guidelines of the research, I will be able to conduct a research project or simulation on my own.

One of the lessons that I learned is about the topic choosing. I used to think the research topic must be something big, but now I know it should be very precise and delicate. In this way, researchers can focus on the aspect that they are choosing to work on. At the beginning of the course, my topic was very general and the topic was different from my explanation of my research. With the help from the professor, I started to narrow down my topic, and finally I came up with a good one. This process taught me much of how to plan and design my research. The other lesson that I have gained is about designing. Every week, we need to finish a chart, and with the help of those charts, we started to have a clear picture of our simulation design in front of me.

The challenge that I met was the definition of technical terms. I tried to read through more carefully in that paragraph to get the idea of the term, I read through other colleagues’ discussion posts to correct my understanding or prove mine, I looked up the resources on line to help me have a better understanding too. I grew a lot in this course. I also consistently had the problems about my APA format in the course. I had the support from the writing center and the professor, which I hope I am getting better at it now.

The perceptions of an early childhood professional is more profound for me now. Professionals in this field is not a stand alone group. Professionals and researchers should work closely with the participants by being involved in their worlds, using their languages, getting familiar with them, and asking the consent from those children as well. All above is not that easy to do. I have the respect for the professionals in this field, as children and power relationship can be the biggest challenge in the process of research.

Thank you for Dr. Dartt and my colleagues for sharing and supporting me through this course. I do appreciate the comments and suggestions from Dr, Dartt, which helped me modify and polish my research simulation to be a better one. I also appreciate the comments and posts that my colleagues were sharing during the whole course. I hope we can work closely again to help and support each other to finish our Master Degree.