Research that Benefits Children and Families

As we know, there have been myriad research studies over time that have had significant positive impacts on the lives of children and families. I could spend an infinite amount of time detailing them all for you, but I am not going to do that. Instead, I am going to dive into a fantasy world where I possess the means and knowledge to conduct research on any topic, and that I am not restricted by any present realities. In this instance, I would choose to research the topic of premature birth. While we know many causes of premature birth, and ways to prevent it, we do not know everything. According to the March of Dimes, 1 in 9 babies (11.5%) born in the U.S. in 2013 were premature. This is unacceptable for such an advanced country. I would research more about the causes of premature birth, ways to prevent it, and how to provide infants with the best supports possible when they are born too early. I see the effects of extreme prematurity every day, and know that these children received care in a neonatal intensive care unit for months following their births, yet they still struggle with completing everyday tasks. By preventing premature birth in the first place, we can give our children a much better start in life. Children will be more on track developmentally, and parents will be less stressed about finding, accessing and affording the care their child requires.

References
http://www.marchofdimes.com/

My Personal Research Journey

I have begun my fifth course at Walden University, working toward my master's degree. Although we are just finishing up week two of the course, I find that this course is more challenging and more frustrating than any other course I have taken so far. The focus of this course is to improve our skills at reading and applying research to our practice, and to simulate our own research study.

The process of learning to read research has been a frustrating one for me. I struggle to learn the terms associated with the different types of research and find myself reading and rereading the same material over and over with the glossary of our book open at all times. I have even taken to copying down the definitions in a notebook, with the hope that writing them in addition to reading them will help me process them better and understand them deeper. The process of completing this week's assignment related to constructing a research chart and providing the definition of key terms in our own words was incredibly challenging. I am not used to being in a position where I struggle academically and I definitely don't like it! Now I know how my students feel when they struggle to learn a difficult concept. I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to read and understand the key terms in the chapter in a more effective way. This is the only way I know how to study them and quite frankly it is not working for me.

I have chosen to research the relationship of family involvement in early childhood with children's academic outcomes. I predict that students with more highly involved families will have more positive outcomes than students without home support of their academics. A brief search of the Walden library provides fruitful information about this topic.

I look forward to reading the chosen topics of my Walden colleagues and hope we can collaborate with each other on how to understand research terms more effectively.