Ethics in Early Childhood Research: First, Do No Harm

Research that Benefits Children and Families

For this assignment I chose option two.

If I possessed the means and the knowledge to conduct research studies about any topic in early childhood the topic I would choose would be the benefits of play in the early childhood environment. I would definitely want to follow babies from through adulthood. The research would compare children who experienced limited play in early childhood environment to that of children who experienced an educational setting that provides more play. In the research I would like to uncover which set of children overall are more school ready in all areas.

 The contributions I imagine are that all of the children developmental stages would be established through the different forms of play. Additionally, children will be fully prepared for problem solving, critical thinking, socialization and physically fitness. As a result of families understanding and recognizing the benefits that play offers they will place their children in early childhood setting that focus on more play to enhance their development and future success. They will refrain from taking the fun out of learning by trying to turn their children into learning machines.

Critical Consumers of Research: Standard and Guidelines

Your Personal Research Journey

The topic I chose for simulation is How to Support Children during the Grieving Process. I chose this simulation because often times when children have being affected by death in some time of way little or no emphasis is place on children. Having young children I have found that when their peers have in encountered the death of a love one they wanted to support them however they were confuse as to how to support them. Adults sometime take for granted that children do really understand the death process and do not acknowledge children at all.  Death is a nature part of life and children are affected by it as well therefore, as I grow in the field I want to be accurately support children with this process.

I had so many questions it was difficult to narrow my simulation down. There were several angles I could explore with this topic. Overall, I feel that focusing on support children during the process the most important.  As a result of constructing the research chart I was gained insight on how to locate answers I had to questions.  Although, I found challenges with determining credible web sources after farther exploration I was able to determine techniques to identify credible web sources.

If any of you have any advice, encounter a resource on tool that you feel could assist me with proceeding in this process or with this course please do not hesitate to share it with me. As I locate resources I will share them with you all as well.

Reference:

Slaughter, V., & Griffiths, M. (2007). Death understanding and fear of death in young children. Clinical Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 12(4), 525–535. Retrieved from the Walden Library using Sage Premier 2010 database.

 Evaluating web pages: Techniques to apply & questions to ask. (2010). UC Berkeley Library. Retrieved from http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html