In this Qual Methods Hub, current (Zaiba Patel) and former (Abigial Branford) DPhil students discuss their doctoral methods in history education, both exploring teaching and learning about the British Empire. 
Zaiba’s research focuses on decolonising pedagogies in the school history curriculum. She completed her transfer of status and is moving on to the research phase of her project. She will reflect on her process so far, what decolonial research methods may entail, and the ethical issues that have arisen surrounding participant anonymity. 
Abigail explored how secondary school students in England learned about and perceived the British Empire. She will discuss her mixed methods design including classroom observations, surveys, focus groups, and interviews (and offer some cautionary tales about juggling too many research methods!) This range of methods provides fodder for a conversation about what each method contributed to the overall research project and some of their drawbacks. 

Teams link may be requested from the convenor, Velda Elliott (velda.elliott@education.ox.ac.uk)