Student Learning Through Ohio School Libraries, Part 1: How Effective School Libraries Help Students

Headnote

This article provides an overview of the Student Learning Through Ohio School Libraries research study undertaken from October 2002 through December 2003. The study involved 39 effective school libraries across Ohio; the participants included 13,123 students in grades 3 to 12 and 879 faculty. The focus question of the study was: How do school libraries help students with their learning in and away from school? The findings, both quantitative and qualitative, showed that effective school libraries help students with their learning in many ways across the various grade levels. Effective school libraries play an active rather than passive role in students' learning. The concept of help was understood in two ways: helps-as-inputs, or help that engages students in the process of effective learning through the school library; and helps-as-outcomes/impacts, or demonstrated outcomes of meaningful learning-academic achievement and personal agency. The study shows that an effective school library is not just informational, but transformational and formational, leading to knowledge creation, knowledge production, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge use, as well as the development of information values.

Introduction

Historically, library services worldwide have been based on the assumption that they contribute to the social good, facilitating personal decision-making, societal well-being, the growth of democracy, and the development of a knowledgeable society (Kranich, 2001). Yet understanding how libraries actually help people remains a vexing question. Increasingly, service providers, funding authorities, and publics are calling for clear evidence that expended resources actually produce benefits for people (Durrance & Fisher-Pettigrew, 2002). School libraries are not immune to such calls. In an environment of reduced budgets and staffing, and a prevailing public perception that school libraries are marginal rather than integral to student learning outcomes, there is an urgent need for school librarians to demonstrate and substantiate the vital effect of their school library program on student learning and to take an evidence-based approach to practice (Todd, 2002a, 2002b).

How Do School Libraries Help?

The central concept of this research is help, and it is embedded in the focus question: How do school libraries help students with their learning in and away from school? Help refers to both the institutional involvement through advice and assistance in the information experiences of people (helps-as-inputs) and the effect of this involvement on the people...