Information-seeking behaviours of teacher students: A systematic review of qualitative methods literature

Abstract

Teachers are the key to an inclusive and quality education for all. Therefore, training teachers and teacher students and understanding how they learn, including information-seeking behaviours, is crucial. This systematic literature review explores the observed research gap regarding teacher students’ affective information-seeking behaviours. Of specific interest is the research practice context. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guided the review process. Searches were conducted in three key research databases and resulted in 1006 references. Abstracts and titles were screened and assessed using Rayyan software. After screening, 56 publications were chosen for the qualitative synthesis; 17 used qualitative methods and were thereby of interest for the review. The high number of publications resulted in a need to divide the review into two studies. The first part focused on quantitative and mixed methods studies. The results were then analysed through thematic analysis. The results revealed a research gap regarding qualitative methods studies of non-normative and qualitative features of teacher students’ information-seeking behaviours, especially affective behaviours and in research practices. This is the first systematic review of teacher students’ information-seeking behaviours using thematic analysis. Thus, a valuable contribution to information-seeking behaviour and information literacy research has been provided.