I chose to explore the research published by the European Early
Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA). I learnt that EECERA is a
non-profit organization "which promotes and disseminates
multi-disciplinary research on early childhood and its applications to policy
and practice" (EECERA, 2012), and found out that their journal European
Early Childhood Education Research Journal (EECERJ) "is issued five
times annually and now is in its 22nd year of publication. It has become a
world leader in the field" (EECERA, 2012).
In the October 2014 issue which is their 22nd Volume and 4th
Issue, there were eleven articles available online but not all of them are
research articles. One interesting study is titled Feelings towards
child–teacher relationships, and emotions about the teacher in kindergarten:
effects on learning motivation, competence beliefs and performance in
mathematics and literacy. In reading through the abstract I learnt that the
study was conducted using interviews with kindergarten children and the
variable found to contribute the most to school performance was competence
beliefs (Georgia Stephanou, 2014). When
re-reading their title, I felt that although the issue is quite interesting,
the author lost me by not using a simple and clear research question, or
hypothesis.
Other articles discuss children playing in the wild woods during child
care and how the teacher influences that experience, another article reports on
a project that assessed children in Australia as to who and what they perceive
as safe.
One interesting review article discusses the research methods and
participant-researcher relationship as related to Vygotsky's social
constructivist approach. I found the abstract difficult to read, although the
research seems to be of scholarly quality.
It was very exciting to read the abstract for a study done in Portugal.
All the terminology that was in the abstract is now familiar to me due to our
course: the study was cross sectional, and quasi-experimental with a sample of
103 children. The study found that families who did enroll in an intervention
program, had greater gains in various variables measured for themselves and
their children.
Altogether by reviewing the website and the journal published, and
because I live in a multicultural city outside the United States, I could not
compare the research emphasis to what it would be like in the USA. The topics
all seem familiar. The one thing that was obvious to me is that the research
approaches and methodology seems to be exactly the same as what we are learning
in this course. This tells me that there is an international/global method to
conducting research which makes a study of high quality and when published,
scholarly, as well as replicable and valid internationally.
References
European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA), 2012. http://www.eecera.org/
Stephanou, G. 2014. Feelings towards child–teacher relationships, and
emotions about the teacher in kindergarten: effects on learning motivation,
competence beliefs and performance in mathematics and literacy. European Early
Childhood Education Research Journal, Volume 22, Issue 4.
Thank you for sharing these resources. I come from Europe so it is great to tap into relevant sources of information in case I ever decide to go back. Safety is a common issue in preschools since most children are still working on their motor skills. Injuries occur more often in my nursery class than in any other grade in my school. Some schools ,I feel, go overboard on safety measures. I used to work with one school that did not allow us to use toilet paper rolls for arts and crafts because it was considered to be unsanitary. I cannot even imagine them letting children play in the woods.
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