Action research is a methodology that has been increasing in educational studies in recent years. Previous studies have revealed that action research affects practitioners more than traditional methods, since the practitioners are not only participants but also researchers themselves. One branch of action research is collaborative action research…

Background/Context: High quality early education, preschool through third grade, has received significant attention as a vehicle for addressing academic disparities. Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer a promising strategy for improving early education and closing the gap between research and practice; however, RPPs in the early learning…

This study investigates our role as early years researchers in qualitative data analysis. We draw on our doctoral studies to address how the co-construction, co-performance and co-reflection of narratives elicit deeper and new understandings of early years workers in England, and how our life stories are co-produced through narrative inquiry.…

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) are emerging as a promising approach for educational change by closing the gap between educational research and practice. However, these partnerships face several challenges, such as addressing cultural differences as well as relationship-building in a historically unbalanced relationship between researchers…

This article focuses on student teachers' professional development and explores how the students connect theory and practice in these processes. Data consist of 17 talks during weekly seminars with 15 preschool student teachers and a group of researchers both at campus and at the practicum placements during their first term. Initially, the…

This study investigated the effectiveness of ABRACADABRA (ABRA), a web-based literacy program, developed by the Center for the Study of Learning and Performance at Concordia University, in facilitating the literacy attainment of third-grade primary school students in an area of rural China. Researchers shared the experiences of localizing ABRA to…

The initial research undertaken was an attempt to understand what it is like for young children to be in the world. The study was a search to reclaim a sense of place for the teacher/researcher and the children, and to capture young children's profound wondering. This article is a reflective look back at that study and attempts through methods of…

This paper presents a collaborative research project developed by a researcher in mathematics education and a grade 3 Inuit teacher from Northern Quebec. Four learning situations were created, but discrepancies occurred between what was planned and agreed upon by both collaborators, and what was enacted during the project. We studied these…

Within the field of developmental science, there is a general agreement of the need to work together across academic disciplinary boundaries in order to advance the understandings of how to optimize child development and learning. However, experience also shows that such collaborations may be challenging. This paper reports on the experiences of…

This article provides a glimpse into the use of arts-based methods within a narrative inquiry into learning in an early years degree. Drawing on writing as inquiry [Richardson, L., and E. A. St. Pierre. 2005. "Writing: A Method of Inquiry." In "The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research," edited by N. K. Denzin, and Y. K.…

The focus on improving children's readiness for kindergarten has intensified globally. While most studies examine this issue prior to children entering kindergarten, little is known about how education stakeholders make sense of readiness once children enter kindergarten. This article addresses this gap by examining how a range of stakeholders…

Growing recognition of the complexity of children's lives has led to strong advocacy in education research literature for greater collaboration between researchers from different paradigms to address the "wicked" problems that face contemporary children and families. There is little literature, however, exploring how collaboration works…

Early childhood research has long established that drawing is a central, and important activity for young children. Less common are investigations into the drawing activity of adults involved in early childhood. A team of adult early childhood researchers, with differing exposures and familiarities with drawing, experimented with intergenerational…

The purpose of this study was to design an instrument for five- to six-year-old children to help measure their verbal reasoning skills and assess the validity and reliability of the resulting instrument. For this purpose, the researchers have created the Younger Children Verbal Reasoning Test (YCVR-test) and a control instrument, which have been…

During this inquiry, I describe my journey as a beginning arts-based researcher, using this methodological approach to explore the "peak experiences" of five, second-grade gifted students in a general classroom. Concerned with collecting valid data from young children through traditional interviewing techniques, I turned to Arts-Based…