The document discusses a proposed research study on how teachers influence the worldviews of their students. It aims to investigate whether teacher influence occurs through the content they teach, the ways they teach, or both. The researcher plans to first survey teachers on their perspectives then conduct interviews to further design the study. A participatory action research approach is proposed where teachers would collectively study this issue and generalize their experiences to theory.

1. How teachers influence the 'world-view' of students AEM6100: Education Research Design and Methods Jorge Jorquera 2009

2. My research interest is concerned with how teachers influence the 'world-view' of students and what implications this may have for learning and pedagogy.

3. Why this research It's my view that the values and beliefs that children develop, impact greatly on their ability to learn. I think the 'world-view' that children internalise - to use Vygotsky's formulation - is not only an important element in motivating or demotivating children in learning, but also may impact more directly on the development of their actual cognitive capacities and learning skills.

4. What do I mean by 'world-view' The term 'world-view' has its origins in the German word Weltanschauung - Welt is the German word for "world", and Anschauung the German word for "view" or "outlook." It's a concept that has a rich history in German and cognitive philosophy but in the contemporary intellectual world seems to be theoretically dominated by theological studies.* It is hard to deny that in human societies learning takes place within culturally and historically 'determined' frameworks of ideas and beliefs; and that it is through such frameworks that people interpret and interact with the world. *The Christian anthropologist Paul G. Hiebert refers to world-view as the “ fundamental cognitive, affective, and evaluative presuppositions a group of people make about the nature of things, and which they use to order their lives ” . (p. 15; cf. pp. 25 – 26, 80, 84, 324 Transforming Worldviews ).

7. Why teachers? The influence of parents on the world-view of children is widely acknowledged, and hard to deny. The influence of teachers, however, has received less systematic attention. How do teachers influence the world-view of "developing minds"? Is it through the content and objectives of what they teach (curriculum)? Is it through the ways in which they teach (pedagogy)? Or both?

9. Sub & related questions Do teachers perceive that they influence the world-view of students? How conscious are teachers of any such influence? Do teachers perceive any links between the world-view of students and their learning? Do teachers develop their pedagogies with any sense or consciousness of how their own world-view may influence students and their learning?