Research group Practice-based research in and about early childhood education and care - PraFF

This research group is theoretically and empirically diverse, but we are united in an ambition to work with and to further explore practice-based research in early childhood education and care - what it is and what it can be. Practice-based research can be carried out with several methodological approaches and what to be called practice-based research can vary, and also what each researcher calls her/his research - practice-based, implementation research, intervention research, follow-up research, etc. It is in the nature of exploration, how practitioners and practice is involved, what topics are focused on and how it can inform practice is in the core understanding of practice-based. 

The research group is based on the idea that high quality research can be done close to practice and implemented in a variety of ways. One question we are increasingly asking is, what kind of knowledge production is done by practice-based research ? How should the results be understood in relation to teaching and learning?

Using the term practice-based includes the idea that the research undertaken may be used by the field and that it fulfils a need, but not necessarily in a “one to one” relationship. However, working with practice-based research often includes the idea that practice is developed with the support of research, but how this is done is far from given.