Searching for research results to inform the design of an initial professional teacher education programme for the foundation phase: A systematic review

This article reports on a systematic review conducted to inform the development of a professional teacher education programme for the foundation phase of schooling. The research question was: What do quality research studies identify as the components and/or characteristics of quality teacher education for the foundation phase programmes that allow new teachers to begin to teach for epistemological access. A search for systematic reviews on educational programmes related to foundation phase for initial teacher education was conducted for the period between 1980 and 2011. The researchers added Stage 0 as a fifth step to the traditional four-step systematic review process. Stage 0 or quasi-tertiary review allowed us to present substantive findings of the identified systematic reviews and to explore their methodological quality. From the initial 2876 hits (mostly health and medical studies), only 19 studies were related to the educational field. Only three of the 19 studies were finally accepted as eligible at Stage 0. None of the reviews directly addressed programme design but contained elements that were considered as useful when designing programmes. The present study makes it clear that there is a dearth of research on entire programmes related to initial teacher education for foundation phase teachers.