This review of early childhood research examines what has been accomplished in the field and what questions now need to be answered. Project Head Start has had the effect of helping developmental psychology to become more comprehensive and less ethnocentric than previously. Developmental psychologists are now studying infants and toddlers and the preschool child's total functioning. Educational researchers are currently reacting to the apparent failure of public preschool programs to improve the later school achievement of disadvantaged children. The trend will probably be toward a wider range of options concerning types of early education. Developmental research in early education, involving studies of how and when particular skills and content can best be learned, is necessary to create an effective instructional program. Little research has been done on the developmental characteristics of 3- and 4-year-olds, and few instructional programs have recognized the important role fantasy and spontaneous play have in a child's cognitive development. The scope of research in early childhood education needs to be broadened and put in a more comprehensive developmental framework, although approaches are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Involvement with collecting and analyzing data has widened the distance between the researcher and the researched, and researchers should use the current period of limited funding to rethink and reorder priorities. Researchers might investigate the child and his family, the classroom and the teaching, the teacher's role, and institutional setting, and research and the researcher. (KM)