Doing Early Childhood Research

International perspectives on theory and practice

Glenda Macnaughton, Sharne A Rolfe, Iram Siraj-Blatchford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000256819
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Doing Early Childhood Research demystifies the research process. An international team of experienced researchers shows how to select methods which are appropriate for working with young children in early childhood settings or at home.They 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 methods including observation, small surveys, interviews with adults and children, action research, ethnography and quasi-experimental approaches. They explain clearly how to set up research projects which are theoretically grounded, well-designed, rigorously analysed, feasible and ethically based. Each chapter is illustrated with examples.Widely used by early childhood researchers in many countries, this second edition of Doing Early Childhood Research has been fully revised. It includes new chapters on beginning research, mixed methods research, interviewing children, and working with Indigenous children, and also new case study chapters. It is essential reading for novice, initial career and experienced researchers.'It is rare for any research methodology book to cover so much ground, and contain so many different kinds of resources between two covers.' - Journal of Education for Teaching 'As a guide for new and inexperienced researchers, it is second to none.' - British Journal of Educational Studies

PART I THE NATURE OF RESEARCH

1 Research as a tool

Sharne A. Rolfe and Glenda Mac Naughton

Doing anything for the first time is a challenge, and starting off in research can be a daunting prospect. But along with uncertainty and some trepidation, there are often feelings of curiosity and excitement about the journey of discovery that lies ahead. Once underway, experience, knowledge and confidence build. There may be hurdles and pitfalls to be negotiated along the way, but the hardest part is often taking the first step.

In this chapter, we aim to demystify research and the research process, drawing on our combined knowledge and experience of doing early childhood research, and training research students over many years. Throughout this book, you will have the opportunity to learn from many experienced researchers working on a diverse range of topics, using a wide range of methods and approaching early childhood research from different philosophical perspectives and paradigms. You will also hear from some beginning researchers who share their experiences with you.

If you are already experienced in doing research, we hope this book will facilitate your attempts to demystify research for your students. In this chapter, we emphasise that research is best conceptualised simply as a tool that helps us answer important questions about early childhood— questions that would remain unanswered were it not for the willingness of academics, practitioners and participants (children and adults) to engage with the research process. Research is about uncovering and enabling the emergence of new understandings, insights and 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 an impact. Research may be hard work, but it can also be fun. It is absolutely worthwhile.

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 ask is: ‘Why do research at all?’ Research can have negative as well as positive impacts, as Coady in her discussion of research ethics (Chapter 5) describes in the case of ‘Genie’. Genie was a young girl 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 at understanding how these early experiences had influenced her development (see Curtiss, 1977). Although the researchers may have started out with the best of intentions, many questions have been raised about whether this research was ethical and how this highly vulnerable young person may have been affected in negative ways by the scrutiny of the researchers and the research process. The case highlights the tensions that can exist when benefits to the participants in research are weighed up against benefits to the researcher. Clearly, researchers must understand and address ethical issues that arise in research, including the need to protect the interests and ongoing welfare of research participants. Ethical concerns must lie at the heart of our decision to research and the choice of research methods. As Aubrey and colleagues (2000) write, ‘researchers need to be clear about their roles and the responsibilities towards the people involved—including themselves—and to the research process’ (2000, p. 143).

With careful attention to ethical concerns, research can make positive differences in the lives of children, and in this book you will find many examples of research that has done so. Some studies have at their core the quest to describe or to understand, and when this is the case researchers often favour qualitative approaches that encourage complexity and diversity in the research data. For example, Taylor’s participant action research study of teacher learning (Chapter 17) highlighted the complex and diverse ways in which teachers in New Zealand understood the professional and policy contexts that influenced what they knew and how they understood themselves as learners. This included emphasising the tensions and dilemmas that the teachers’ engagement with biculturalism generated within the group. Blaise’s small-scale classroom study of gender and sexuality (Chapter 12) generated data from diverse sources (children, parents and teachers) and used diverse data-generation strategies (reading children’s books, sharing and discussing popular toys, children’s drawings and photographic documentation) to build a complex picture of how a small group of young children understand gender and sexuality in their early years. Understandings generated through research that explores diverse perspectives on the why and how of what happens enable early childhood practitioners to rethink what they do, how they do it, and how this affects children and their families in a variety of settings. These understandings also have the potential to impact on policy directions and the way governments respond to emerging social issues.

Other research seeks not only to understand but also to explain. This task lends itself to quantitative approaches, in which careful control is essential to conclusions about cause and effect. Examples of such approaches are described in chapters by Hayes on research design (Chapter 7) and Harrison on quantitative methodologies (Chapter 8), including the major long-term Australian study called Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). This carefully designed study with a large, nationally representative sample of infants and children is investigating Australian children’s development and the contribution of social, economic and cultural environments to their adjustment and well-being.

The LSAC is an example of longitudinal research, in which data on the same children are collected at multiple points in time. 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. A well-known example of this kind of research began in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Extending from the middle of the twentieth century into the beginning of the twenty-first, the research followed the development and life course of nearly 700 infants who experienced various risk factors in the pre- and perinatal periods (see Werner and Smith, 2001). An important outcome of this study and other research that has followed has been identification of ‘protective factors’ that enable some at-risk infants to be resilient despite early disadvantage and trauma.

Another example of longitudinal research that has provided important insights into children’s development is the Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation from Birth to Adulthood (Sroufe et al., 2005). This study of 180 children born in poverty has now continued for more than 30 years. Extensive assessments of the participants’ development, and their developmental contexts (home, early childhood settings, school, etc.) were undertaken at multiple times, beginning prenatally. The study sought to identify the conditions that promote optimal, competent functioning— or are associated with developmental problems—along with sources of resilience and pathways to change. Based on their extensive research, the authors reach a number of compelling conclusions, including ‘that nothing is more important in the development of the child than the care received, including that in the early years’ (p. 19).

Longitudinal research can involve timeframes of many years, or just a year or two (see Emmett and Rolfe, 2009, as discussed in Chapter 18 on direct observation). Emmett and Rolfe (2009) examined the impact of an attachment-focused training program on participants’ professional practice during the final year of an early childhood pre-service course and after two years of employment in the field. Collection of data at multiple time points may also occur in experimental and quasi-experimental studies that use a prospective pre-test/post-test design. An example of this approach is Liane Brown’s evaluation of an attachment-based parenting program on parental sensitivity (see Chapter 20).

Research can also reveal how different cultures understand development, and challenge us to rethink Anglo-centric ways of studying, understanding and explaining children, pedagogy, curriculum and the effects of social contexts on what happens in early childhood settings. Martin (Chapter 6) focuses particular attention on patterns of silencing Aborigines in research and what it takes to build research that emphasises Aboriginal sovereignty in generating ways of being and knowing in early childhood research. Sue Atkinson-Lopez’s study of Indigenous self-determination in early childhood curricula (Chapter 15) explores what it looks like in practice to build a research protocol and approach to knowledge generation that challenges Anglo-centrism within a research project. Research should challenge habitual ways of doing things, and provide 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?

Many people are ‘amateur’ researchers, seeking to understand, explain and make sense of life experiences in whatever ways they can. Developmentalists such as Jean Piaget have outlined theories about how this process proceeds. People develop hypotheses and then test them out in haphazard ways with limited data. The danger of this approach is that we can become inappropriately confident about our amateur research outcomes, reaching hasty and premature conjectures dressed up as quasi-scientific conclusions. Sometimes we rely on the opinions or knowledge of others. This is also problematic, as opinions may be based on stereotypes passed down through the generations.

In contrast to these informal ways of gathering knowledge, well-designed research based on reliable and valid measures can generate meaningful, conclusive outcomes. We summarise the characteristics of high-quality research later in this chapter.

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. In an early paper, 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.’ (1984, p. iii). Recognising this, an increasing number of early childhood courses include research training as part of their syllabus so that graduate early childhood practitioners can be researchers as well as informed consumers of the research of others.

LEARNING TO RESEARCH

When you first think about doing research and the questions you could address, 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. Neither is intuition. Irrespective of who is researching, quality research requires knowledge, skills and experience. Reading this book is a great place to start. It is also helpful in developing the right sort of attitude—seeing research as a tool.

Seeing research as a tool

It is important to understand that research is a tool and, as with all tools, it is simply a matter of learning how to use it. Thinking about research in this way means that you as the researcher control the research process, not vice versa. You begin the process with 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 may want to answer previously ignored questions, or you may want to approach old questions from a different angle. 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 published literature. If you are a student just beginning research, a topic may be provided by your lecturer or supervisor so that you can focus your attention on planning, designing and executing the research, evaluating results, drawing conclusions and writing them up. You may be invited to join an existing research group, taking part in a program of studies designed so that each, in its own unique way, adds to an emerging understanding of the topic of interest. Regardless of how you come to your topic, it is by learning to use research as a tool that you can answer the question or questions you set out to address, and inform others of what you have found. The next chapter explores these processes in more detail.

Learning to be sceptical

It is important to note that a research study rarely stands alone. An important part of the research process is replication. Different researchers or research groups study the same phenomenon, using the same or similar methods, in order to determine whether the same results will occur. This helps to establish the generalisability of results and conclusions drawn from them. Clearly if one study reports particular results, but these are not replicated in further similar studies, the initial results are thrown into question. Certainly one would want to look carefully at the details of how the studies were done to establish reasons for the discrepant results. Being sceptical of research out...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• Contributors
• Introduction
• PART I: The nature of research
• PART II: Analysis and design
• PART III: The research process in action
• Appendix 1: Getting our terms right
• Glossary
• Index