In this seminar, Dr. Phillips will introduce the following premise and its implications for current graduate students and emerging scholars in education: when undertaking a research program, we always have the option to choose an established methodology/method (“off the shelf” or “readymade”), to innovate on or substantially adapt existing approaches (“out of the box”), or to approach a research program as inherently also a design space of possibilities and limitations sourced from the places and spaces we are each and collectively working from (“made at home” or “home-made”).

Dr. Phillips will address issues of validity, rigour, and ethics in research and how these are not simply abstract but in fact pragmatic and material concerns in the design of research: conscious (or not) research design choices affect what data is perceptible via collection through to the possible meaning-making offered via dissemination. Speaking from his own decolonial and transformation-seeking research contexts, Dr. Phillips will make concrete links to past and current choices of research design and invite participants to make their own connections to their own research communities. This seminar will therefore include opportunities for participants to reflect on their own approaches to research design through activities and shared resources.