Impact of School Librarians on Elementary Student Achievement

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is evidence that a full-time certified school librarian, trained and licensed based on state requirements, impacts fourth grade and fifth grade student scores on reading and/or mathematics end-of-year state achievement tests. Following over 30 years of school library impact studies, primarily correlational and qualitative studies, the school library field continues to have a lack of strong evidence of school librarian impact. This quasi-experimental matching design was conducted to determine if students who had full-time certified school librarians attained higher achievement scores than students who did not have full-time certified school librarians, through matching students based on age, gender, ethnicity, students with disabilities, English language learners, and economically disadvantaged status. Independent samples t-test analyses using 14 databases of fourth and fifth grade students’ reading and mathematics end of grade achievement tests found that students with full-time certified school librarian scored higher than students without full-time certified school librarians, with scores that were statistically significant at p \u3c .001. The effect size ranged from Cohen’s d = .08 to d = .25, all small effects. Additional analyses were conducted to determine if there was a difference between students in schools with a change in staffing of school librarians across a four year period. Students in 19 schools that had a full-time certified school librarian for two years scored higher, without significance, on both reading and mathematics tests than the students in the same schools after losing the librarian. Students in 6 schools who did not have a librarian for two years scored lower, without significance, on mathematics achievement tests than the students in their school after the school gained a full-time certified school librarian, but scored higher (p = .035) on the reading achievement test than the students in the school after their school gained a full-time certified school librarian. Overall results provide evidence that full-time certified school librarians have an impact on both students’ reading and mathematics achievement scores

School librarians’ impact on students’ English & math achievement

This study uses a rigorous quasi-experimental matching design to determine if full-time certified school librarians impact fourth grade and fifth grade student achievement scores on English/language arts or mathematics end-of-grade (EOG) state achievement tests. Using a matched pairs design, results provide an estimation of causal effects in a nonrandomized study, as individual students in elementary schools with and without full time certified school librarians are matched and achievement scores are compared

Building Resilience in New and Beginning Teachers: Contributions of School Librarians

Building beginning teachers\u27 resilience may contribute to increasing teacher retention in the early years, in turn improving student academic achievement. School librarians contribute to developing teaching skills by mentoring new teachers. This qualitative study of first to third year teachers and school librarians investigated the contributions that school librarians made in building resilience of beginning teachers through a focus group of new teachers and interviews of school librarians. Findings show that school librarians may contribute to early career teacher resilience, especially during the first days of school, by encouraging perseverance, providing nourishment and empathy, and offering the library as a resource, especially for researc

The Preparation and Certification of School Librarians: Using Causal Educational Research About Teacher Characteristics to Probe Facets of Effectiveness

How do we define a high-quality school librarian? Decades of educational researchers have attempted to link teacher characteristics—such as how teachers are prepared, which credentials they carry, and years of experience—to student outcomes. These researchers have contended that individual educator attributes may have a direct effect on what and how much their students learn. School librarians are also teachers who have direct student contact, and although numerous studies have indicated that school librarian preparation, licensure, and other background characteristics are promising areas for further direct exploration, researchers have yet to examine if, how, and why school librarians’ certification or preparation positively impacts students’ learning outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to compare findings from causal educational research to findings from descriptive school librarianship research to discern possible areas of causal alignment that warrant further investigation. In this study, we present a subset of a larger mixed research synthesis of causal educational research related to student achievement, contextualized with existing school librarianship research, to draw relationships between classroom teacher and school librarian preparation and characteristics and to shape researchable conjectures about school librarians’ effects on learner outcomes

Global learning: The school library as an exploration hub

Researchers will share papers exploring the SIG theme, The School Library as an Exploration Hub. This interactive SIG session includes presentation of each research paper followed by open dialogue and Q&A regarding issues raised by the papers, implications for practice, and future areas for research. The following papers were selected for presentation: School Librarians Making Global Connections: Conjecture Mappings and Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships Kimmel, Mardis, Schulz-Jones, & Wine How do school libraries impact learning outcomes? Conjecture mapping combined with Research Practitioner Partnerships (RPP) provides a design-based means to identify, explore, and document effective practices. Researchers share conjecture maps developed from compiled educational research to theorize school-based malleable factors to impact student learning. Thinking Globally to Explore Dissemination of a Model of Mentoring and Collaboration for New Teachers Soulen The AASL Standards identify collaboration as best practice and recommend building a trusting relationship with colleagues. As a causal model, A Continuum of Care: School Librarian Interventions for New Teacher Resilience provided targeted interventions for first year teachers as a special population. This study explored the effect of mentoring toward collaboration by school librarians for new teachers to increase resilience, decrease burnout, and increase retention. Transformative learning for pre-service school librarians: Understanding experiences that enhance self-awareness and global consciousness Kammer Transformative learning, an adult education theory, describes how a “disorienting dilemma” can significantly change one’s perspective. In this study, students in a school library program were asked to identify learning experiences that helped them transform or expand their self-awareness. Findings imply that students are impacted by the aesthetic dimension, where they actually saw different ways of doing things in the library they could connect to their own practice