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

Abstract

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.