about The Worldview Kit

FAQ: The Worldview Kit -- Who Might Use It and How?

• Open-minded, inquisitive and intelligent people who wish to further their own global education

• Life coaches and those seeking a life coach

• Classroom teachers and teachers, students, and parents involved in home schooling

• Potential life partners seeking to assess compatibility and spur discussion of beliefs / values

• Mediators, counselors and those professionally engaged in helping others resolve conflicts 

• Ministers, preachers or those often faced with tackling "the big questions" 

• Psychiatrists, therapists or those involved in therapy

• Political consultants or candidates for public office

• Researchers and academics concerned with personality types, values surveys, anthropological studies, etc 

FAQ:  Who is "The Worldview Literacy Directed Individual Study Course" designed for, and what are the general learning objectives for it? 

This semester long  (16 week) course is for intellectually curious students--high school age and up.
General learning objectives:   As a result of completing this course, you should  1) appreciate what a worldview it, how it develops and why it is important;  2) increase your literacy with respect to knowledge important to worldview development;    3) better appreciate the human heritage--physical, biological, and intellectual--human society and human nature, and better appreciate all of this as it relates to you personally;  4) better appreciate the complexities behind the search for answers to life's big questions, the various forms that some of those answers can take, and conflicts that arise out of these different answers;   5) have completed a rigorous analysis of your own worldview, pondered the meaning of this analysis, and have created a customized deck of worldview playing cards based on it;  6) better understand yourself (and perhaps another  key person or two in your life?);  7) have matured as a thinking, feeling and doing human being, and furthered your own global education.

FAQ: Why is The Worldview Kit referred to as a "Kit" ?

To make full use of The Worldview Kit--mainly its Worldview Explorer Game--you need to both provide additional inexpensive materials and do some work making something. With respect to the former, to make full use of The Worldview Kit having blue card stock, plastic sheet protectors, a medium size three ring binder, clear invisible plastic tape, and dice is suggested.  As for making something,  after making a computer assisted effort to build, refine, understand, and assess your worldview, you will  create a customized deck of playing cards that embodies that assessment of your worldview. Our "Custom Cards" computer program, card stock, your printer, scissors, tape, etc. will be employed here.   

Worldviews are unique, extraordinarily complicated, and thus difficult to characterize and get a handle on. While obviously providing only a first (an admittedly very simplified) approximation, use of worldview theme cards provides a way of doing this. There are several reasons for choosing playing cards--most notably they are in widespread use, their size will limit the information contained to a manageable amount, and they are associated with confrontation as in playing a game.  In the "game of life" you often confront people. The outcome of more serious and involved confrontations or interactions--whether a dispute is resolved, whether you get in a fight, whether you are able to exchange valuable or instructive information, whether you grow from the interaction, whether you have a happy marriage, etc--can often critically depend on the worldviews of the participants and how well they understand and accept those worldviews. It can be likened to sitting down with a person or persons to play cards: the better idea you have of the cards both you and the other people are holding, the better off you'll be in steering the game's outcome to your liking!  

Not unless you want to play the Worldview Explorer Card Game--which is only a small portion of what The Worldview Kit has to offer. If you don't like the worldview / playing cards analogy provided in the answer to the previous question, here's another one:  a worldview / musical sound analogy.  To understand this, imagine that we are trying to analyze some complex sounds-- perhaps a piece played by a symphony orchestra. Using  hardware (microphone, computer, interface) and software (a Fourier analysis program) increasingly available in high school physics labs, one can represent the music on a computer screen as a (constantly changing) pattern of contributions of particular notes (frequencies).  Think of it as a bar graph, where frequency is plotted horizontally and strength of that particular frequency is plotted vertically. It is fascinating to watch the changing height of bars (or spikes) on the screen as the music plays.  While your worldview changes much more slowly over time, it can be frozen at the moment you choose and represented in similar bar graph fashion--where worldview theme number is plotted horizontally and strength of its contribution is plotted vertically.  The The Worldview Kit, specifically its Worldview Analysis Program, your web browser and printer, can create such a plot (although you'll have to turn it around so that it looks like a vertical bar graph).   

FAQ: I'm trying to visualize playing the Worldview Explorer Card Game. Can you show me a picture of a game in progress?

FAQ: What is the objective of The Worldview Explorer Game and how is it played?

The game provides a structure for exploring, discussing and better understanding one's own worldview and the worldviews of others. The objective is "To learn more about one's own worldview and the worldviews of others" (either those playing the game or, if one plays alone, the worldview of a typical American adult). Informally the game provides an alternate (and hopefully more fun!) way of doing an analysis of worldviews based on various attributes (36 of them; the first six succinctly labeled are: Reason, Faith, Reductionistic, Wholistic, Tolerant, Intolerant ) and religious/spiritual/ethical traditions (six: Christian, Confucian, Green, Hindu, Islam, and New Age)

Basically each player must first spend some time articulating one's worldview and creating a customized deck of worldview playing cards (using other tools/programs on the Project Worldview website and in The Worldview Kit).  The game is then played in rounds, where players alternate choosing which attribute or tradition that round will be based on from possibilities provided by rolling dice. The player whose turn it is will pick the attribute or tradition that he or she believes is most consistent with his or her worldview and least consistent with the (imagined) worldviews of the others playing.  Based on a Worldview Analysis Table provided on the game board, each player's worldview is scored for that round's attribute or tradition choice.  After a predetermined number of rounds (to be chosen by players based oin how long of a game is desired--this might be twelve if three players are playing) points are totaled.  The player with the most points wins.

While seemingly it is competitive based on there is  winner with the most points, it is also co-operative and communal.  To score well requires some knowledge and insight into the worldviews of the other players, thus there is an element of understanding/empathising with the other players.  At the end of each round each group can pause and discuss individual worldviews in terms of the round's attribute or tradition. More mature players realize that winning based on the number of points isn't that important (and that there is an element of luck involved in who wins), but rather it's the learning and understanding obtained from playing and interacting with others that is to be valued. 

FAQ: I've seen websites where getting someone to answer questions related to some aspect of their  worldview is used as a prelude to promote particular narrow worldviews, often dominated by particular religious beliefs. Could it be that your website and The Worldview Kit have a similar agenda (or hidden agenda)? 

In short, NO!  Please read the "Neutrality Pledge" on our homepage.  There you will also find (under "Our Logo & Our Hope") the following statement: "It is our hope that ... all people come to have a healthy worldview, one that brings happiness and promotes planetary well being."  Despite this hope, which most people would share -- not too many are hoping for the opposite (unhappiness and general ill health / discomfort)--both our website and The Worldview Kit do not actively attempt to keep someone from believing things or engaging in related behaviors that are generally accepted as being unhealthy or not leading to happiness and planetary well being.   

FAQ: I like the Quick Worldview Analysis Program on your website. What additional capability  does the expanded version of this available in The Worldview Kit provide?

Both programs find the % correlation between two worldviews. Whereas the website version 1.00 does this for two worldviews (typically yours and someone else's) based on data you input, the expanded version compares your worldview with thirteen other standardized ones built into the program based on various group beliefs, religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions.   The names of these are as follows: USA ADULT AVERAGE,  WORLD'S POOREST-UNEDUCATED-STRUGGLING,  PRO BUSINESS,  PRO SCIENCE,  PRO ENVIRONMENT,  CHRISTIAN ,  RELIGIOUS--SALVATION, HAVING DOMINION OVER,  SECULAR/ETHICAL--STEWARDSHIP,  SECULAR/ETHICAL--HUMANIST ,  CONFUCIAN,  HINDU,  ISLAM, and NEW AGE. 

FAQ: What specific categories / attributes and religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions will the Worldview Analysis Program provide information on?  

click here to see the list

FAQ: In checking one's worldview for consistency and internal contradictions, what specific pairs of worldview themes that are diametrically opposed will the Worldview Analysis Program provide information on?  

 click here to see the list

FAQ: How are the two magnifier cards that come with The Worldview Kit used? 

Their use is optional. They are provided to show enhanced contribution (enthusiasm) or diminished / enhanced in a negative sense contribution (antagonism) of particular worldview themes to someone's worldview.  Example: Suppose someone was consumed by a desire for vengeance that was strongly driven by a radical religious fundamentalist ideology. Even scoring theme #17A (Vengeance) a ten and theme #9A (Religious Fundamentalism) a ten (on a 0 to 10 scale) would not numerically represent the key importance of these themes in the overall worldview. That could be accomplished  by using the magnifier cards to indicate Enthusiasm rated at five extra points ("my life is organized around this theme").  A pictorial representation of this worldview (see previous question) would then show two pronounced spikes.  Conceivably this person could be dangerous and possess an unhealthy worldview. Going back to the musical analogy used in answering an earlier question, just as simple sounds (say by striking a tuning fork) would be dominated by contributions of particular frequencies, simple worldviews (and sometimes unhealthy ones) can be dominated by contributions of particular worldview themes. 

2) Contents 

The Worldview Kit is housed on a CD with 380  html, pdf,  jpg and misc. files.   These files will be used in conjunction with the project Worldview website.   You will access the html and jpg files using your web browser, and the pdf files using Adobe Reader (available free from Adobe). These files enable you to do the following: 

1) Get Better Oriented: 
The pdf file “Using The Worldview Kit” provides detailed instructions. This includes a section on "Building and Refining Your Worldview". Other files provided will enable printing out the following: six "Big Blue Worldview Themes Cards" (covering all eighty worldview themes), a “Worldview Scorecard”, a listing of “Worldview Themes Organized By Category or Suit”,  a double sided sheet, “Results of Assessment of Worldview",  and "Connecting Religious, Spiritual, or Ethical Traditions With Worldview Themes".

2) Gauge Compatibility of Particular Worldview Themes With Your Worldview 
Each of the CD's worldview theme web pages provides an additional link to a Brief Questionnaire to Test Compatibility.  There are typically eight to sixteen questions to respond to on a 1 to 5 scale--from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree".  A compatibility score (on a 1 to 10 scale) is computed and a table provided to interpret results.  Altogether, for all 80 worldview themes, over 660 compatibility questions are provided.  Note: consideration of these questions can lead to lively discussion! For a subset of the questions--those previously used in national  public opinion surveys--separate scores will be computed. These can be used to compare your worldview with that of a typical USA adult's.  Altogether over 470 such survey questions are provided.                                                                                                                                                                                      
3) Take Self Test and Gauge Your Learning As You Proceed
Each of the CD's worldview theme web pages has an additional link to a ten question self test that you can use to assess your comprehension of  background information believed to be important to fully understanding a particular worldview theme, or the introductory material on worldviews in general.  Your score is computed immediately upon completion of a self test, and wrong answers are flagged.  Such tests are also provided for the introductory material on worldviews in general. Besides self tests, The Worldview Kit  includes (on pdf file) a two page "Internet Investigation of WV Theme #__" sheet--which can serve as a template to use in producing student activity sheets for each worldview theme.  Note: Both self tests and student activity sheets are used in the Worldview Literacy course--see 7) below.

4) Use the Worldview Analysis Program
The Worldview Analysis Program will gauge your worldview in eighteen categories: % scores for each category attribute will be reported, they will add to 100%.  For example, category #1 is “Basis for Knowledge”--its attributes are Reason and Faith. A minister's scores here might be 30% Reason,70% Faith; an engineer's might be 70% Reason,30% Faith. In addition, this program will analyze your worldview according to the beliefs / values of six major religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions.
 click here to see the list of all categories /  attributes, and religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions. 
The Worldview Analysis Program will check your worldview for consistency / contradictions by focusing on seventy pairs of worldview themes where the orientation, beliefs and long-term behavior associated with each is (to some extent) diametrically opposed.  For example, one such pair is provided by WV theme #1B: Skeptic and WV theme #2A: The True Believer. It will provide both a bar graph pictorial representation of your overall worldview, and similarly picture your scores on pairs of diametrically opposed worldview themes.  You can compare your individual worldview theme scores and worldview analysis category / attribute, religious, spiritual, ethical traditions scores with those of “An Average USA Adult ” based on public opinion surveys utilizing over 470 individual questions.  click here to see the list of all seventy  pairs of diametrically opposed themes

5) Run the expanded version of the Quick Worldview Program
This compares your worldview with thirteen other standardized ones built into the program based on various group beliefs, religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions by providing a % correlation (ranging from -100% to +100%).   The names of these are as follows: USA ADULT AVERAGE,  WORLD'S POOREST,  PRO BUSINESS,  PRO SCIENCE,  PRO ENVIRONMENT,  CHRISTIAN ,  RELIGIOUS--SALVATION, HAVING DOMINION OVER,  SECULAR/ETHICAL--STEWARDSHIP,  SECULAR/ETHICAL--HUMANIST,  CONFUCIAN,  HINDU,  ISLAM, and NEW AGE. 

6) Create Your Own Customized Worldview Theme Cards
The Worldview Kit  provides the "Custom Cards" program, something that is to be used after completing the “Your Worldview to Deck of Cards Translation” sheet that you'll print out.  This program will facilitate creating a deck of playing cards customized to embody your own worldview.  Fronts of cards will feature the value and suit of the card (e.g. Ace of Spades, etc), the name of the associated worldview theme, and your name. Backs of cards will feature the complete text of the associated worldview theme description.  You'll print out this deck of cards using your printer and card stock you provide. 

7)  Play The Worldview Explorer Game   
This is an educational, fun card game for from one to four players. Making use of the customized worldview theme cards you create, this is a game for learning more about one’s own worldview and the worldviews of others.  The Worldview Kit  provides files and instructions for printing out and creating: 11" x 17" WV Explorer Card Game Boards, score sheets, and instructions.

8) Take The Worldview Literacy Directed Individual Study Course
This semester long (16 week) course is for intellectually curious students--high school age and up.   It is based on the project Worldview website as supplemented by all of the above described  Worldview Kit offerings.  In addition it is based on the following .pdf files:  a) "Course Syllabus" (ten pages)  b) "More on Worldview Development" (six pages) c) "Suggestions for Special Activities" (three pages)       d)  "Unit Exams" (four of them, spanning twenty four pages). The 2015 revised version provides a provision for supplemental use of The Worldview Theme Song Book--Exploring the Feelings Behind Worldviews. 

Bonus:
The Worldview Kit CD is now bundled with two books:
The Worldview Literacy Book (published July, 2009)  
Coming of Age in the Global Village (classic 1990 book with new Epilogue added)! 

3) How To Order

            click here for information on how to order

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