The New Jersey Study of School Libraries: One Common Goal – Student Learning
In my never ending search for research about information literacy and libraries I stumbled across this study last week. The phase one document is over 300 pages long (Yikes!). I have only skimmed it so far but it mentions specific skills like teaching advanced online searching and information evaluation as important skills students go to their librarian seeking. The study is composed of a seven part survey that school librarians in New jersey answered for their data. The survey is in the appendix and it is very long. It has one open ended question that I think would provide great information about evidence based practice:
66. Describe student learning outcomes that result from your school library program. These may include: meeting curriculum standards; mastery of information, media, and technology skills;
mastery of inquiry or research processes; test score achievement; changes in attitudes, interests, or motivation.
On page 160, it states that 721 participants answered question 66. Librarians struggled to answer the question using student outcomes. Most of the answers reflect how the librarians saw the curriculum was supported by the library not how the students developed as thinkers and readers.
In the light of these concerns, and given the current climate of learning accountability, standards-based education, and very clear calls for school librarians to articulate library outcomes in terms of student achievement and mastery of content / curriculum standards, we would strongly recommend that all school librarians undertake a professional development program on Evidence-Based Practice to develop their skills at identifying, documenting, and disseminating student learning outcomes enabled by the school library program, particularly emphasizing curriculum outcomes, rather than library-based outcomes.p.168
As a library school student I am very interested in developing my skills as an Evidenced- Based practitioner. Part of the reason I want to pursue the thesis is, I want to get good at collecting evidence of student learning.