This study investigated upper secondary school students’ views on their school libraries and whether their libraries helped with their studies. The study’s main focus was information literacy and reading, but the function of the library’s physical environment was also investigated. Participating school libraries were known to be well-developed and to be well integrated in the planning, executing and evaluating of lessons and school projects. Two online questionnaires were distributed at six different schools: one for students and one for the school librarians. 222 students chose to participate. With primarily a sociocultural perspective, the study found that students to a great extent valued both the calm study environment that the library provides and the school librarians’ knowledge and helpfulness. The students’ responses indicated that they felt helped on aspects related to information literacy to a greater extent than aspects related to reading. The students also felt that their libraries provided more help with finding texts that they enjoy reading than with reading strategies. The study found no clear correlation between library usage and reading confidence, which indicates that not only “readers” use the school libraries. Vocational students responded less frequently and more negatively than non-vocational students, and school librarians described it as more challenging both to reach out to vocational students and to find opportunities to work with vocational teachers. Equivalence between classes seemed to concern several school librarians in this study.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hb-21636 |
Date | January 2019 |
Creators | Andersson, Annika |
Publisher | Högskolan i Borås, Akademin för bibliotek, information, pedagogik och IT |
Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
Language | Swedish |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
Format | application/pdf |
Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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