Doing Early Childhood Research

International perspectives on theory and practice

Sharne A Rolfe, Glenda MacNaughton, Iram Siraj-Blatchford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000256802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Doing Early Childhood Research demystifies the research process. An international team of experienced researchers shows how to select the right questions and use the appropriate methods to investigate important issues in early childhood.The editors and authors provide a thorough introduction to the most common research methods used in the early childhood context. Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of much early childhood research, they cover a wide range of conventional and newer approaches including observation, small surveys, action research, ethnography, policy analysis and poststructuralist approaches. They explain clearly how to set up research projects which are theoretically grounded, well-designed, rigorously analysed, feasible and ethically fair. Each chapter is illustrated with examples and case studies. Doing Early Childhood Research is essential reading for new researchers and students inexperienced in conducting research.

Part I
The nature of research

1
Research as a tool

Sharne A. Rolfe and Glenda Mac Naughton

Have you ever done research? If you have not, or if you are very new to it, you may be feeling daunted by the thought of becoming a researcher. When we approach anything new we generally feel a combination of emotions, both positive and negative. But with growing experience and knowledge comes confidence. Sometimes the hardest part is taking the first step!

Our aim is to demystify research and the research process. We want this book to build students’ confidence so they are able to take that first step. There is nothing like experience, under the guidance of those more skilled, to promote optimal learning. In this book you will have the opportunity to hear from many experienced researchers working on a diverse range of topics, using a wide range of methods and approaching research from different philosophical perspectives or paradigms.

If you are already an experienced researcher, we hope this book will facilitate your attempts to demystify research for your students. In this chapter we emphasise that research is simply a tool that helps us answer important questions about early childhood, questions that would remain unanswered were it not for the willingness of practitioners and academics alike to engage in the research process. Research is about discovery. Research creates knowledge. The best research will always involve close, ongoing collaboration between those who plan the research, those who carry it out, those who participate in it and those for whom the results have impact. Research is hard work, but it should also be fun.

WHY BOTHER WITH RESEARCH?

Given the skill it requires, the resources (both financial and human) it consumes and the time it takes, an important question to be answered is: ‘Why do research at all?’. Research can have negative, as well as positive outcomes. In her discussion of research ethics, Coady (Chapter 5) describes the case of ‘Genie’, who was isolated in a bedroom of her parents’ home for most of her childhood. After she was discovered, she became the focus of intensive research directed to understanding how these early experiences had influenced her development (see Curtiss, 1977). Many have questioned the impact of this research on ‘Genie’ and her subsequent life course. The case highlights tensions that may exist between benefits to the participants in research and benefits to the researcher. A clear implication is that researchers must understand and address ethical issues that arise in research, including the need to protect the interests and ongoing welfare of research participants. Such concerns lie at the heart of our choice of research methods and how we go about doing research. This is discussed further by Grieshaber in Chapter 9.

With careful attention to such concerns, can research make positive differences in the lives of children? The answer is a resounding yes! In this book you will find many examples of research that has made, or has the potential to make, such a contribution. Some studies have at their core the quest to describe or to understand. To do this, researchers often favour qualitative approaches that encourage complexity and diversity in the research data. For example, Ochsner (Chapter 17) explored how children’s understandings of femininity, masculinity and gender norms both resist and maintain the gendered social order of the classroom. To do this, she conducted a detailed case study of one urban preschool classroom, observing the children and developing a relationship with the teacher that enabled her to uncover complexities of gender within that setting that would likely have been inaccessible via other research approaches. Farrell (Chapter 16) used document analysis, questionnaires, interviews and observation to develop an understanding of the lived experiences of incarcerated mothers and their young children. Understandings such as these enable practitioners to rethink what they do, how they do it and how this effects children and their families in a variety of settings. They have the potential to impact on policy directions and how governments respond to emerging social issues.

For other research studies, the aim is explanation, rather than, or in addition to, understanding. This approach lends itself to quantitative approaches, in which careful experimental control is essential to conclusions about cause and effect. An example of this approach is found in research on the effects of non-parental child-care on children’s development and mother–child relationships (see Harrison, Chapter 7). Harrison’s study, part of the Sydney Family Development Project, involved data collection over time and included assessment of the participant children at ages 1 year, 2.5 years and 6 years. Longitudinal research of this kind allows examination of how certain events or experiences impact on children’s well-being and development, both currently and at later stages. Another example of this kind of research began in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Extending over more than three decades, the research followed the development and life course of nearly 700 infants who experienced various risk factors preand peri-natally (see Werner, 1993). An important outcome of this research has been identification of ‘protective factors’ that enable some at-risk infants to be resilient to early disadvantage and trauma.

Longitudinal research need not involve such long time frames. One study, a classic in the field of developmental psychology, involving shorter time frames of several months, examined how maternal responsiveness impacts on infant crying over the first year (Bell and Ainsworth, 1972). The study found that infants who were responded to quickly cried less after a period of months than infants whose mothers delayed responding. This finding challenged the prevailing view that responding to infant cries simply reinforces crying behaviour, thus encouraging even more of it. Bell and Ainsworth’s research, and similar studies, have helped parents and early childhood practitioners alike gain insights into how adult behaviours impact on children and, more generally, to understand the kinds of experiences that promote optimal outcomes.

Research is also beginning to enlighten us about how different cultures understand development, and what early childhood practitioners can learn from these cultures about care and education of young children (see Grieshaber, Chapter 9). Research thus challenges habitual ways of doing things, and provides reasons to modify, refocus or change. Throughout this book you will have the opportunity to learn from various researchers whose own research has contributed, sometimes in major ways, to just these sorts of outcomes.

WHO CAN DO RESEARCH?

We are all ‘amateur’ researchers. As humans, we have an inbuilt propensity to want to understand and explain what we experience, to make sense of it. Many developmentalists (for example Jean Piaget) have outlined theories about how we do this. We develop hypotheses and then we test them out, usually in haphazard ways with limited data. Sometimes we become inappropriately confident about our amateur research outcomes, reaching hasty and premature conclusions. Racist categorisation of individuals, or groups of people, is an example of this sort of ‘research’ gone wrong. Sometimes we rely on the opinions or knowledge of others. This is also problematic, as opinions may be based on stereotypes, sometimes passed down through generations. These informal ways of gathering knowledge often lead to faulty or incorrect assumptions and conclusions. Generating research outcomes that have significance, add to our understanding, provide reliable and valid measures and/or explanations requires a different approach altogether. The characteristics of research that can achieve these outcomes are well known. We summarise them later under the rubric of high quality research.

While most research, including early childhood research, is undertaken by people working in or associated with universities or educational institutions, quality research is not the sole province of university-based academics with doctoral degrees. Many people are able to do research that can make a valuable contribution to practice, provided that they have access to sufficient financial and human resources. The questions thus become, ‘Who can do high quality research?’ and ‘Who should do research?’

Wadsworth (1984) argued strongly that those affected by research can and should do research: ‘Research is a process legitimated in our society as producing knowledge and therefore ought to be in the hands of those who want to use and benefit from it—particularly when it is information about our own lives’ (p. iii).

Applying these ideas to researching early childhood, research can and should be done by parents, children and practitioners. Doing or being part of research can improve professional practice (Wiersma, 2000). Following what is known as the ‘Teacher as Researcher’ movement (see Elliot, 1991), many practitioners are increasingly involved in researching early childhood. There are good reasons to encourage practitioners to research. It is often more meaningful to other practitioners than university research (for example, Flake et al., 1995) and consequently it is more likely to change practice. Recognising this, an increasing number of early childhood courses include research training as part of their syllabus so that graduates can be researchers as well as informed consumers of the results of research undertaken by others.

LEARNING TO RESEARCH

When you first think about questions to research, you might consult experts, read about different opinions and even talk to your colleagues and friends about their views. This may help you to clarify what it is that you really want to know. But this is not enough to generate high quality research results. Neither is intuition. Irrespective of who is researching, quality research requires knowledge, skill and experience, which can be gained in numerous ways. Reading this book is a great place to start. It is also helpful as you begin to learn about research to have the right sort of attitude to research—that you see it as a tool.

Seeing research as a tool

It is important to understand that research is just a tool we can learn to use. Thinking about research in this way is helpful particularly if the research process seems unduly complex and therefore inaccessible. Thinking about research as a tool means that you as the researcher control the research process, not vice versa. You begin the process by your interest in an early childhood topic or question. Not content to accept what is already known and written about this topic, you want to know more. You want to answer previously ignored questions, or you want to approach old questions from a different angle. Sometimes nobody has previously asked the question you want answered. Research can satisfy your fascination and others can evaluate and benefit from your work.

Some research topics and questions come from our personal or professional experiences. Others arise from careful reading of the literature. When we are just beginning to research, our topic may be given to us so we can focus our attention on planning, designing and executing the research, then evaluating our results, drawing conclusions and writing them up. Regardless of how we come to our topic, it is by learning to use research as a tool that we can achieve an answer to the question or questions with which we set out. We can then inform others of what we have found. The next chapter explores these processes in more detail.

Learning to be sceptical

It is important to note here that research studies rarely stand alone. An important part of research is replication. That is, different researchers study the same phenomenon, using the same or similar methods, in order to determine whether the same results will pertain. This helps to establish the generalisability of the results and the conclusions based on them. Clearly if one study reports a particular result, but seven further similar studies cannot replicate it, the first study’s findings are thrown into question. Certainly one would want to look carefully at the details of how the study was done to establish reasons for the discrepant results. The point is that it is good to be sceptical of research outcomes, just as it is good to be critical in our evaluation of whatever we read or are told. The case of maternal responsiveness to infant crying discussed above illustrates this point well. Although recent research has confirmed Bell and Ainsworth’s original findings (for example, Hubbard and van IJzendoorn, 1991), the results have been very actively scrutinised, especially by those espousing theories thrown into doubt (for example Gewirtz and Boyd, 1977).

Some research, however, such as action research (see Chapter 10) or case study research (Chapter 17) is about creating change or understanding in a specific setting rather than producing generalisable results. In this research validity arises through the way the research is conducted and analysed rather than through its replicability and generalisability.

Becoming apprentices

Recognising the challenge involved in learning about the research process, many institutes of higher education provide the opportunity for students to learn about research via an ‘apprenticeship’ model. That is, the student works closely with an experienced researcher, either on the researcher’s own project or on a project that they develop together that is appropriate to the level of skill and resources available to the student. This is one of the best ways to learn about doing research. Early in their course undergraduates can, with guidance, plan and carry out small research projects, often pooling the data they collect with others who have (ideally) conducted the research in the same way.

Preparing fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• Part I: The nature of research
• Part II: Analysis and design
• Part III: The research process in action
• Appendix: Getting the terms right
• Glossary
• References
• Index