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Office of Shared Accountability Reports

Outcome Evaluation of the Library Media Program on Information Literacy Skills

Description:

In their role as teachers, library media specialists deliver the curriculum on information literacy skills, which include locating, collecting, organizing, interpreting, and sharing information in an ethical manner. The study examined the effects of these instructional services on students' academic achievement and acquisition of information literacy skills (as measured by TRAILS, the Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills). Findings were consistent for each grade level tested: students met the grade-level benchmark for the overall measure of information literacy skills and students with better information literacy skills (i.e., higher TRAILS scores) had higher academic achievement (i.e., higher reading scores)

Recommendations:

  • Encourage library media specialists to continue instruction that leads to student proficiency in information literacy skills, such as identifying sources and developing a search strategy.
  • Support data-driven instruction by promoting the use of TRAILS, so that library media specialists can use the results to inform their instruction in information literacy skills.
  • Ensure that students make progress in mastering all information literacy skills, which also should improve their reading performance, given the positive association between TRAILS and reading scores.

    File Name: Brief Info Literacy_09_10.pdf (200KB PDF)