The purpose of this study was to compare the perceptions of administrators, teachers, and library media specialists regarding the current and ideal roles of media specialists in schools' instructional programs. Randomly selected schools in two of Metro-Atlanta's large urban school systems were asked to participate in this study. Administrators, teachers, and media specialists were asked to complete a two-part questionnaire/survey. The first part of the questionnaire/survey was concerned with personal characteristics and experience in education. The second part dealt with perceptions of media specialists' roles in schools' instructional programs. The instrument, designed by the researcher, was based on the 1988 and 1998 Information Power publications, addressing the media specialists' roles as instructional consultant, as teacher, as information specialist, and as program administrator. The responses were analyzed using the One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to determine ifthere were statistically significant differences among the respondents' perceptions of media specialists' roles in schools' instructional programs. If differences were shown, the Scheffe Test was used to identify those differences. These analyses showed significant differences within and among administrators', teachers', and media specialists' perceptions of the current and ideal roles of media specialists in schools' instructional programs. There were differences shown in the current and ideal perceptions within each group, and the analysis revealed that among the groups, it was teachers' perceptions that differed significantly with administrators' and media specialists' perceptions regarding the current and ideal roles of media specialists in instructional programs. The implications point to a possible need for additional training regarding media specialists' roles in administration and teacher education programs, development of more collegial relationships through collaboration in schools, and enhanced leadership and communication skills among administrators, teachers, and media specialists to determine the instructional needs of individual schools. Future studies could include analyses of administrator and teacher education programs regarding the inclusion of media specialists' roles, additional moderators in comparative studies, school systems located in rural communities, and comparisons of mandated media specialist roles with job descriptions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:auctr.edu/oai:digitalcommons.auctr.edu:dissertations-4754 |
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| Creators | O'Neal, Anita J. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center |
| Source Sets | Atlanta University Center |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | ETD Collection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library |
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