Contemporary views on the educational profession include profiling of educators as a researcher whose research competence efficiently conducts research int he context of early and pre - school education with a view to improving practicies and working with children of pre - school age. The aforementioned research competence is acquired during the graduate study through various courses and the aching methods. Given the importance of the experience and perception of the educator about the experiences gained during the acquisition of research competencies in the study, it is important to conduct an analysis of the same with the aim of improving the offered content and teaching methods. By applying quantitative metodology on a sample of 168 students of the Advanced Graduate Study of Early and Pre-school Education, a number of positive and negative experiences were identified during the acquisition of research competences in the domain of data collection exercise.The results highlighted challenges in the area of cooperation between faculties and institutions for early and pre-school education, given the possibility of performing dana collection exercises, which would be useful to consider when creating a study program and teaching performance. The society requires that we have competent, creative educators who are able to find original solutions and involve other subjects of the educational system in research and innovative activity and thus develop their research competences that play a significant role inadvancing both practice and science.