This 2018-2021 study will continue to examine the effect of school librarians on student academic achievement in schools throughout New York State.
This project RE-96-18-0032, has been made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program
As an important aspect of education programs, school libraries need to provide strong evidence of their efficacy—how what they do, or the resources they provide result in student learning. We have developed an extensive set of research questions underlying our study, however all of our questions revolve around two key areas of inquiry: whether and in what specific ways do school libraries effect changes in students (both academically and behaviorally).
Although the effectiveness of school libraries has been investigated for over twenty-five years two critical components remain absent: one is strong, empirical evidence of how school librarians contribute to student success, and the second is an underlying theory of action or model, that provides clear linkages between what a school librarian does, or the resources that a school librarian provides, and the effect on student outcomes (American Library Association, 2014; Grover & Fowler, 1993; Morris & Cahill, 2017; Stefl-Mabry & Radlick, 2017). To work towards addressing both of these concerns we will build upon our prior IMLS research in which we investigated the effect of school librarians on student achievement and created multiple statistical models based on five years of school-level data reflecting all public schools in New York State and expand our analyses to a total of eight years of data--making this the first longitudinal study of school library effects on academic outcomes using empirical analyses and replication across multiple years on a large population of school libraries—over 4,000 public school buildings.
In addition to academic outcomes, we will empirically examine the influence of a school librarian’s experience, diversity, background, library schedule, curriculum, pedagogy, and administrative support on nonacademic, school-behavior related outcomes such as attendance and discipline. We will conduct statewide school librarian web surveys, and combine the web survey data together with our larger data set, making use of the extensive school library data collected each year by the New York Department of Education’s Basic Educational Data Systems (BEDS) which provides yearly building level school library information on 45 different aspects of school library programs and resources. We will also use outcome measures from English language arts, mathematics and social studies (Grades 3-8 and English, Math and Grades 9-12 Social Studies Regents) and 40 other school demographic and climate variables for all public schools in New York State.
We will employ an outlier (beating the odds) analysis technique to identify top and bottom outliers to examine school library variables in the top (and bottom) 10% of schools that exceed (or fall below) predicted outcomes based on the statistical models. We will also conduct focus interviews of top and bottom outliers—to reveal the characteristics of SLs in the top performing schools to shape and inform theoretical models based on school library variables that truly make a difference. We will also attempt to gather similar data from other states to conduct a multi-state comparison. Additionally, we will try to identify the state of the racial diversity within the school librarian workforce in NYS, to explore whether racial interaction effects that have been found between students and teachers also exists with school librarians. The application and combination of several research methods will enable us to analyze our research questions from multiple perspectives.
Assembling strong evidence of library effects on student outcomes, addressing prior weaknesses in the research, and identifying the elements that influence school libraries’ effect on student learning and behavior is of critical importance to all educators. School library characteristics, when demonstrated to positively affect student outcomes, may then be integrated into PreK-12 and higher education instructional practices: in school library, teacher education and school leadership programs and curricula. Thus, by allowing us to extend our work, we can provide a more credible school library research foundation of new understandings for practitioners as well as established and emergent researchers.