The Primary Years Programme in the United States: An Overview and Analysis

International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme: a systematic review

“…In this category, publications are analysed by country based on the geographical location of the schools used in the sample, not the nationality of the authors or the country in which the journal that published the article is located. The country with the highest concentration of research is the USA, with four papers included in the review (Karnes & Nugent, 2003; Kauffman, 2005; Quaynor, 2015, Solano-Campos, 2017). They are followed by Turkey (O’Boyle, 2009; Güler & Yaltırık, 2011; Tugluk, 2020) and Australia (Law et al, 2012; Lebreton, 2014; Walsh & Casinader, 2019) with three publications each.…”

“…This large global dissemination of PYP research is due to the striking expansion of the IB in recent years (Ben-Jaafar et al, 2023), reaching 159 countries by 2021 (IB, 2021c), although in most of them impact research has not yet been conducted on the process of implementing the programme and the results obtained. In the USA, for example, in 2003 there were only thirteen schools offering PYP (Karnes & Nugent, 2003). Eighteen years later, there were 614 (IB, 2021c).…”

“…Focus groups are also used in two articles (O’Boyle, 2009; Sperandio & Kong, 2018), as well as direct observation by researchers of the development of classes in the different educational centres in which the research is conducted (Quaynor, 2015; Solano-Campos, 2017; Lochmiller et al, 2016; Kauffman, 2005; Palmer, 2016). Those investigations that include among their objectives knowing aspects related to curriculum design and school organisation have also used the analysis of the different documents that the school has made available (Bueno-Villaverde et al, 2018; O’Boyle, 2009; Karnes & Nugent, 2003). One article uses an ethnographic method for data collection and analysis (Roiha & Sommier, 2021) and another includes graphical representation as a method for obtaining information that would be more difficult to obtain in other ways (Ellingson, 2017) from teacher participants of some dilemmas they have encountered in enquiry processes with students (Twigg, 2010).…”

“…Tugluk (2020) tries to test the effectiveness of a twelve-week science teaching programme using enquiry as a methodological strategy. Steffen & Bueno-Villaverde (2018), Güler & Yaltırık (2011), Karnes & Nugent (2003) and Kauffman (2005) explore in their works the implementation processes of the PYP in different schools, as well as its strengths and weaknesses and the differences between schools, since as authors including Kidson et al (2018), Leek (2020) and Suresh & Mahajan (2021) point out, the context in which each school is located means that the implementation of the programme must be individualised and must address the particularities and needs of each school. Another theme included in the review is the establishment of professional learning communities through the involvement of organisations external to the school (Sperandio & Kong, 2018) which, following authors such as Thessin & Starr (2011), facilitate and encourage the creation and development of such communities.…”

“…On the basis of our analysis, there are no researchers or research groups with a more or less long trajectory over time whose main line of research is this one. The oldest publication included in this review is Karnes & Nugent (2003), followed by Kauffman (2005) and Carder (2006). Therefore, after the emergence of the PYP programme at the end of the 20th century (Tugluk, 2020), it took a few years for the first peer-reviewed publications on the programme to appear.…”