Wrapping up

Over the past eight weeks, my knowledge about research has expanded and made me feel more confident as an early childhood professional to be a competent and informed consumer of research. I have recognized the importance of research in its many varieties to the early childhood field. I now realize that there is a vast amount of information that can be gathered using research including people's ideas about things, statistics, information from the past, generational or cohort information, information that informs further research, and so on. I also have made the connection between pairing what the researcher wants to learn with what methods the researcher chooses and how different methods can provide different types of information and carry their own specific limitations. Further, I realize that ethics play a major role in research, but that ethics play an even greater role when the research is about or on young children. There are historical examples of deception, abuse, and even exploitation of young children in research projects which illustrates the need for researchers to utilize institutional review boards (IRB's) which will compare their proposal with current ethical and procedural standards. Research ethics is not only about the types of actions that are performed on or with children and their families but also deal with the location of the study, the logistics of the data collection, and the amount of information available to consumers of the research about the participants (privacy and confidentiality included). Despite the wealth of knowledge I have gained over this course, I feel much more confident in my ability to understand the nuances in research designs and have the ability to read complex research with comprehension. I also think that my future courses at Walden will become easier as I am now a more efficient reader of research. I encountered few challenges in this course other than having difficulty finding research of the type I was seeking- it is sometimes hard to discern the research methods of a study from the title, and looking into the methods takes time and practice to identify what type of research method is being used. This was the hardest part of the course for me. As an early childhood professional, I feel more empowered to teach other adults about research and its significance and complexities.

The European Early Childhood Education Research Association

I looked through the website for the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) and found a lot of similarities between research being conducted in Europe and the topics that I have found in recent research in the United States. I also noticed that topics from my undergraduate and graduate studies are ones that also seem to be in the spotlight in Europe. The last several EECERA annual conferences have had focuses on birth through three early experiences, diversity in classroom settings, and early relationships (EECERA, 2016). I think many of my colleagues agree that these are significant timely topics in our field here in the United States. I was surprised to note that these conferences, all serving one organization, take place in many different countries. I wonder how cohesive the early childhood education culture is across European nations and how the EECERA manages these nuances in their literature and professional development opportunities (EECERA, 2016). I think this simple fact suggests a universality of the basic principles of what is known of child development and quality early experiences; despite cultural differences across nations, underlying themes of how children learn can be applied in all or most contexts. Similar to the United States' association for the education of young children (NAEYC) and other organizations (the Division for Early Childhood, Association for Childhood Education International), the EECERA has a Code of Ethics that applies to those professionals working with young children (EECERA, 2015). The topics of their Code of Ethics, too, mimic those that we have discussed in class and those that we would hear from in Institutional Review boards. They include confidentiality, informed consent, participants as subjects versus objects, and more (EECERA, 2015). Again, the underlying theme is a universality of research principles and ethical guidelines for treating children. Perhaps this universality stems from international organizational influence such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Young Child which penetrates cultural boundaries in one unified document (Mac NAughton, Rolfe, & Siraj-Blatchford, 2010). 
References
 European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA). (2015, May). EECERA ethical code for early childhood researchers. Retrieved from http://www.eecera.org/custom/uploads/2016/07/EECERA-Ethical-Code.pdf

European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA). (2016). Previous conferences. Retrieved from http://www.eecera.org/conference/

Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research: International perspectives on theory and practice (2^nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.