This study sought to add to the knowledge and understanding of the organizational change process for successfully implementing an integrated information literacy program in one American high school. Participant experiences were accessed to identify and describe elements of their successful change process, barriers and supports that affected its success, and discover the relationships among key concepts. It also explored participants beliefs about the affect of the program on student achievement and examined how these beliefs affected implementation. A qualitative naturalistic inquiry was conducted and reported in a case study format. A Delphi study identified potential high schools meeting study criteria and purposive sampling identified study participants. Primary sources were in-depth, open-ended interviews focused on participants recollections and understandings of the change process, with additional data drawn from relevant school/state documents, a personal research journal, and relevant literature. Data were analyzed using grounded theory practices. Findings indicated that successful implementation was dependent upon six key concepts: (1) distributed leadership (core concept); (2) effective leadership (3) open and frequent communication (4) better relationships; (5) shared aspects of teaching and learning (6) elements of the information literacy program. Conclusions were: (1) simultaneous occurrence of need, opportunity and leadership for change was essential for successful implementation; (2) distributed leadership practiced by administrators empowered the teacher-librarian and teachers to assume leadership roles; (3) teacher-librarian leadership requires access to ongoing, high quality professional development; (4) continuous high quality, staff development and teacher-librarian staff development role are essential for successful implementation; (5) full-time teacher-librarian and full-time secretary may be inadequate staffing for an integrated program; (6) teacher-librarians open and frequent communication is key to successful implementation; (7) teachers are at different places on the institutionalization continuum; (8) most serious barriers to implementation are time constraints, heavy workload, and fear of changing ones teaching; (9) a successful program requires a combination of key supporting factors; (10) school library and teacher-librarian role changes are indicators of successful implementation; (11) improved staff relationships result from and propel successful implementation; (12) an integrated information literacy program with a central role for the teacher-librarian contributes to improved teaching and learning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04072006-142901 |
| Date | 11 April 2006 |
| Creators | Rojtas-Milliner, Mary Cay |
| Contributors | Joseph S. Werlinich, Blanche Woolls, Otto L. Graf, Jr., Sue Ann Goodwin |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04072006-142901/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0014 seconds