Research Around the World

While reading the Blog assignment for week 5, I have learned several things from the Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) website. To further develop African ECD leadership capacity as a key strategy in support of child, family and community well-being and broader social and economic development is the ideal goal of the Early Childhood Virtual University.

As I looked further into the research conducted by the students in Sub-Saharan Africa, I noticed that the majority of their current international research topics talked about how they could improve the development of young children in Africa. For instance, they wanted to increase children’s safety, development, father interaction, staff training, and program quality.

The surprising insight that I learned by exploring this international early childhood website was the fact that they are struggling with the same issues as America. No matter where you are in this world if it involves young children than you will nine times out ten deal with the same issues as other countries. Also, I learned that they use the Inclusive Quality Act Tool to measure the quality of early childhood services just like we do in American. I did not know that tool was being used all over the world.

Reference

Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): Developed and maintained by the University of Victoria, Canada, this virtual university is the international gateway for early childhood research worldwide. Through the link below, you can access ECDVU’s Sub-Saharan Africa portal. The second link takes you to a list of current early childhood research conducted by students in Sub-Saharan Africa.
http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php
http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

While reading articles about positive research, I came across this website http://childrenshospitalblog.org/stem-cell-research-a-fathers-story/ which talked about how stem cell research helped save a child’s life.

Andres Trevino is the father of Andy Trevino and he has a very personal take on the NIH’s recent stem cell guidelines. Here, he talks about his son Andy’s rare genetic condition, the daughter whose stem cells saved Andy’s life and the potential stem cells hold for curing other diseases (Children’s Hospital Boston, 2009).

Please take a look at this website, so you can see a positive example of research. Although, I am still undecided about research and its methods, I can say that this article has helped broaden my thoughts. I was happy to read about how the stem cell research was able to help save Andy’s life.

You can read the article at this website:
http://childrenshospitalblog.org/stem-cell-research-a-fathers-story/

Reference

Children’s Hospital Boston. (2009, July 7). Stem Cell Research: A Father's Story. [Blog message]. Retrieved March 16, 2012, from http://childrenshospitalblog.org/stem-cell-research-a-fathers-story/

My Personal Research Journey

I have chosen to do research on how to run a private Christian preschool. So far, I have been reading resources to inform on how to determine the difference between high-quality research and self-publish research. I can now tell the difference between the two. Those resources have become vital to my understanding of high-quality research. Another form of a method that has helped me in my growth to become a more confident user of research is the research chart. The research chart helps me to determine whether the articles or journals are published work of professionals. There are certain things that high-quality research article or journal should have, and this chart gives me things to look for, so I can determine if the article or journal is of high-quality. Although, I am starting to learn how to do my own research, and determine the difference between good and fake research, I am still a little scared.

So, if there is anything you guys could suggest that could help me with this process or this course? I would be glad to hear your feedback. This class is new to me, and if you have already done something like this in your previous course feel free to share your insight.

Here are some resources I found to help you understand research articles and journals:

Evaluating web pages. (2007). Duke University Library. Retrieved March 10, 2012, from http://library.duke.edu/services/instruction/libraryguide/evalwebpages.html

Locating and Evaluating Scholarly Articles. (2011). University of Maryland University College Library. Retrieved March 10, 2012, from http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/articles.cfm