Author(s): E. B. Lambert

General References

Introducing Research to Early Childhood Students is not about how to do research. It is about assisting pre-service students to become confident research readers. How to enjoy reading research, how to question it, how to identify its basic strengths and weaknesses, and how to use it to stimulate one's own professional thinking, are the sub themes of this text. To this end a range of research issues have been contextualised into familiar early childhood topics that are relevant to students across all years of pre-service preparation and that relate to the core areas of learning environments and professional experience. Introducing Research to Early Childhood Students is therefore a course text and not a single subject text. The chapters on outdoor learning environments and play for example, relate more to the early stages of training and might best be used first. Students can return to the chapters at any time and work more specifically on the research or theoretical issues presented in them. Chapters do not have to be used in their entirety, instead specific sections can be selected for an in-depth focus.