International Association
of School Librarianship

IASL Research Abstracts: 181

Findings: In Portugal, one-third of teacher librarians do not have any specific training for performing their duties. The area and length of training of the other two-thirds of teacher librarians vary, with 50 to 150 hours on Libraries and Documentation Management the predominant area of study.

Abstract: This paper deals with the impact that the specific training of the teacher librarian can have on educational achievement, mainly at Portuguese public Integrated Elementary Schools (EBIs).Studies done in other countries, like the USA and the UK, suggest that students achieve higher levels of literacy, learning and problem solving, when their teacher librarians have specific training to perform school library tasks. Preliminary analysis of data gathered from a questionnaire sent to the Portuguese public EBIs, which in 2005 were already in the Portuguese School Libraries Net, showed that 32.4% of the teacher librarians do not have any specific training for performing their duties. This analysis also reveals that the area and length of training of the remaining teacher librarians are varied, being Continuous Training (Formação Contínua) between 50 and 150 hours on Libraries and Documentation Management the predominant one. This questionnaire is the first phase of a Doctoral program research work. The data analysis allows for a clear and detailed current situation at the EBIs’ school libraries, in what refers to its human resources and equipment, and is the basis for the selection of the ones where a more in depth research, with interviews to teacher librarians, direct observation and document analysis will take place. This research aims to investigate the possibility of relating educational achievement and a teacher librarian with specific training to perform its duties and tasks, to examine students’ marks, to try to establish positive relationships which cannot be explained only due to school size, budget and number of teachers and to define what could be considered as an educational achievement factor, studying the mission, objectives, equipment and human resources of the Portuguese EBIs.

Novo, A. & Calixto, J. A. (2006). Impact study of the teacher librarian specific training on educational achievement: Current situation at integrated elementary schools. In The Multiple Faces of Literacy: Reading, Knowing, Doing -- IASL Reports, 2006: Selected Papers from the 35th annual conference of the International Association of School Librarianship, and the Tenth International Forum on Research in School Librarianship, Lisbon, Portugal, 3-7 July 2006. Ana Bela Martins, Antonio Pina Falcao, Elsa Conde, Isabel Andrade, Manuele Barreto Nunes, Maria Jose Vitorino, editors. International Association of School Librarianship, Erie (PA), USA, 2006. ISBN: 978-1-890861-32-2.

Subject Categories: 4

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