My Personal Research Journey

            My general topic is high-quality early learning. For my research journey, I chose the research topic of family involvement. I believe when parents are involved in their children's education it helps extend their cognitive learning at home and creates more positive learning experiences for the children. I also believe this helps them perform better at school and gives them a sense of motivation in the classroom because they know their parents are going to reinforce learning at home. Having families involved in their children's learning bridges the gap between school and home communication and gives the children more self-esteem and feel valued important because their parents are taking an interest in their lives.

            Finding reliable resources was a challenge for me in week one. You can look online and ask Google for early childhood reliable sites, but I never knew why they were high-quality sites or not, besides the NAEYC. It still is a challenge for me because so many sites have great information that seems relevant and factual. Though it is interesting information it does not mean that it is credible. Now in week two, we are told to formulate a refined research question on our topic. Again, I am having difficulty with this. I am not sure I am coming up with appropriate refined questions. If anyone has suggestions for me, please let me know. I do not want to be heading down the wrong path. For right now my research question for this week is: How does family involvement affect a child's self-esteem?

            Being in the field of early childhood and working at a childcare for over 17 years I have overseen many family involvement events and given families many ideas to use at home for their children ages six weeks to five years old. I have a binder full of family involvement ideas. I know that involving families in their child's education and in the school environment helps with a child’s development. But I have never researched why it helps with their self-esteem. Though you can see it in the child's interactions I have never taken the time to research it and fully understand it. I think family involvement is a relevant topic especially now. The pandemic has put a halt on many things in life, everyone seems to be out for themselves then they are just going through the motions day by day to try and make it in this world. I feel we must get back to normal and communicate and feel free to be involved in things like we used to be.