Teacher professional development in values education: experimenting with design

D.Phil.Schools are sites of values education. This thesis argues that teachers need to be prepared systematically in a programme for the infusion of values into the curriculum. The inquiry investigated such a programme of teacher development in which teachers‘ participation was examined with a view of examining the design of the programme and to make recommendations for revision and refinement of the programme. The main research question that guided this inquiry was, ―How do teachers engage with the ACE programme and how is this engagement1 made visible in their practice and their discourse?‖ This research question addresses both teachers‘ understanding (personal meaning making) or ―internalisation‖ in Vygotskian parlance (Vygotsky, 1986), their transfer from their own understanding to action in learning environments and the activation of specific values that they hold dear. Ultimately this research question pertains to how design principles are activated in the programme for teacher development and also how they may need to be amended as a result of the understanding that comes from the inquiry. The object of the inquiry was thus the teachers and their interaction with this ACE programme, the design principles of which were the elements of the ACE programme that were ultimately examined as they played out in the teachers‘ learning and practice. I employed a design-based research process, using both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. The sources of data included questionnaires, observations, interviews, journals and photographs