School Library Research in the Real World—What Does it Really Take?

Abstract

School libraries are perceived to have a significant effect on student achievement. The reality is that evidence supporting the effects of school libraries on student achievement remains unconvincing to many serious researchers. In this paper, we provide a systematic review of 25 years of school library research examining student achievement. Results indicate that of over 260 studies, fewer than 27 approach the minimum requirements of research design. The unembellished truth is that most school library studies suffer from limitations of design, measurement, and analysis. To address such limitations, we built multiple statistical models based on six years of school-level data reflecting all public schools in New York State. We highlight key challenges of quantitative research: design, indicators, measurement and analysis approaches as they apply to ours and other school library research and share initial results from our study examining the causal relationships among school librarians, resources, activities and student achievement.

The influence of extrinsic and intrinsic variables on children’s reading frequency and attitudes: An exploration using an artificial neural network

“…Library research with educational implications is infrequently reported beyond library research space (e.g. Hartzell, 2002), raising ‘a need within the school library and educational research community for more systematic, rigorous and collaborative research on factors related to school libraries and their effect on student achievement’ (Stefl-Mabry, Radlick, Armbruster, & Keller, 2016, p. 1). School libraries are underfunded and devalued (Burns, 2016; Kachel, 2015), and library staff face notable barriers to supporting students’ literacy and literature learning (Merga, 2019b).…”

School Librarians Conducting Research across Cultures and Countries

“…For example, while school library studies have historically reported positive impacts of the school library, there is value in having them replicated in other scenarios (Lance, 2001). Furthermore, there is a need for library and education studies that have K-12 participants (Morris & Cahill, 2017;Stefl-Mabry & Radlick, 2017). More recently, Johnston & Green's (2018) study of school library research over the past decade considered additional areas of research needed in order to consider how school library programs work in their entirety, Such as the impact of school library programs on student learning; the roles of the school librarian in an ever changing educational landscape; the school library's role in social justice and community activism; technology-enabled learning; technology as a cognitive development tool; information literacy including critical evaluation and curation; and the link between the new 2017 AASL Standards introduced in 2017, school library programs, and student learning.…”

Assessment of Factors Causing Bias in Marketing- Related Publications

“…The authors of [24] empirically identified the following weaknesses in studies: (1) lack of an underlying theory of action, (2) disproportionate reliance on descriptive data, (3) conflation of correlation with causation, (4) problems in measurement and statistical analyses, (5) absence of study replication, (6) weak designs without comparability between library and non-library groups and (7) evidence of publication bias focusing on positive results. Outcome reporting biases could be the most problematic as every researcher believes that his/her study is good without any weaknesses.…”

“…Publication or literature biases can be considered among the most frequently mentioned and discussed. Bias is also relevant in life sciences [15][16][17][18][19][20], psychology [21,22] education [23,24] and economics [25,26].…”