Popis: |
In this study, the possibilities of and issues involved in auto-ethnography research on early childhood education and care are discussed. First, the qualitative research methodology of auto-ethnography as well as its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The advantages include a description of the facts felt by only the person concerned and expressing the meaning researchers attach to their own subjective and emotional experiences. The disadvantages involve limitations of analytical aspects and using biased data. Second, the possibilities of and issues involved in auto-ethnography research on early childhood education and care are considered. Three possibilities exist: First, to theorize specialist knowledge that ECEC teachers have experienced difficulty phrasing; second, to describe the meaning researchers give to their own ECEC experiences by reviewing those experiences; and third, to have enough persuasive significance to treat researchers’ own ECEC experiences as data. On the contrary, a researcher’s experiences could not be described as part of the story by attempting to overcome limitations of the analytical aspects. Finally, in order to address auto-ethnography research on early childhood education and care, two solutions are proposed: First, using the researcher’s diary to avoid using biased data and second, employing Trajectory Equifinality Modeling (TEM) to describe the researcher’s experiences as the story. |