Saturday, September 24, 2011

Research that Benefits Children and Families - Uplifting Stories

My undergraduate project involved a research project based on schedules and routines.  Through the research that I did, I hypothesized that participants that anticipated a routine and were not able to keep the expected routine would score lower on a memory task and be more likely to dislike the activity.  I was unable to use children on the project, so used college students.  What I found was that a lack of routine, or an expected routine not kept, did not affect the memory task but did give me statistically significant results in dislike of the activity.  Those participants whose expected routine of actvities was not followed indicated they did not like the activty.  Those whose routine was followed indicated they did like the activity.  I would like to have been able to generalize the results to children, but it wasn't possible.  The risks would have been low, so I would like to be able to do the same project using children of different ages.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

New Research Project!

I have been looking forward to this class for an entire semester.  Since my Bachelor's degree is in Psychology, I have a love for research and conducting research.  I had to conduct research for my undergraduate degree and was ecstatic to find that I had statistically significant results for one the measurables.  I hope that after forming the simulated research project during this class there will be an opportunity to test the hypothesis.
The research subject that interests me is around attachment and relationships.  Are child-caregiver relationships stronger in home-based care than in center-based care? 
I am interested in this topic because I have been involved in child care in so many different aspects.  I have worked in centers as a teacher will all age groups, and I have been a family child care provider in my home.  As a parent, my children have been in center-based care and in home-based care.  I know that from my own experiences that when my children attended home-based care they had the same caregiver for several years.  When attending center-based care they changed caregivers at least every year.  For some years, the caregiver changed after only a few months due to staff turnover.  I wonder how that changes the relationship that is built between the child and the caregiver.