Using Research on Early Childhood Development and Education
Checklist: Is the research
useful?
Even if a piece of research
meets technical and ethical standards of quality, it may not be practically
useful to all early childhood research consumers. Some other questions to consider:
-
Are the results found in just one
piece of research (for example, in a single study of whether a certain
curriculum has positive effects), or are there many studies that together lead
to this conclusion? Research syntheses (bringing together results from many
separate studies) or comprehensive literature reviews often have this kind of
information.
-
Was the research conducted with
children and programs that have similar characteristics to those you are
interested in? If not, you may have questions about how “generalizable” or
applicable the results are to your own situation.
-
Do the researchers acknowledge
the limitations of their work, as well as its strengths?
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