Understanding Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Early Childhood Education

What are the fundamental elements of good quantitative and qualitative research? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each approach? What does research offer early childhood education? Are quantitative and qualitative approaches compatible? Understanding Quantitative and Qualitative Research in Early Childhood Education presents the research process and its components in a straightforward, easily accessible manner. Using real examples from early childhood education, authors William L. Goodwin and Laura D. Goodwin bring to life for the first time the various methods of research and how they may be studied and applied. They explore the major aspects of both quantitative and qualitative paradigms and techniques, stressing the compatibility and complementary nature of the two approaches that are so often seen as mutually exclusive if not downright contradictory. This book is among the first to address research in the realm of early childhood and will be highly valued in graduate and undergraduate courses and seminars in early