This study aims io stress the importance of research in early childhood education and to examine the general trend, types of research and research domain of early childhood education. On the basis of this review, this paper analyzed the methodological characteristics in early childhood education, and tried to suggest several improvements. 97 articles in 「Early Childhood Education Research」(13 Vols.) published by The Korean Society for Early Childhood Education from 1976 to 1993 were reviewed. This review reveals that 「Early Childhood Education Research」 contains very comprehensive research done by the scholars of early childhood education and contributes to the development of early childhood education. This paper classified the research types into literature and empirical research and found out that empirical research increased rapidly after 1990. This paper also discussed the methodological issues with regard to subject sampling, research type and statistical method, the number of independent and dependent variables, data collection method and instruments, and made some suggestions. In the research domain, there are 37 articles on child development(38%); 37 on curriculum(38%); 19 on support system(20%); 4 on the purpose of early childhood education(4%).