Graduate Research Papers

Availability

Open Access Graduate Research Paper

Keywords

Middle school students--Books and reading; Teacher-librarians; Teacher-student relationships;

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the impact a Teacher Librarian has on students’ self-selection strategies and the broader impact on a culture of reading in a school building. Data was collected from 263 students in middle school (grades 5-8) resulting in 1322 reponses over eight weeks. Research Question 1 asked, What appeal strategies do students use when selecting an independent reading book? “You liked the author or it is in a series” was the number one book selection approach used with 21.6% of the responses indicating this approach when selecting a book. The least helpful book selection approaches were “book trailers” (20.3%) and “AR points” (18.8%). Research Question 2 asked, What motivates students to read for pleasure? “AR points” was the biggest motivation to read on their own time with 38.1% of the responses indicating this. When asked if they enjoy reading free choice books, 31.4% of responses indicated “it is ok.” Research Question 3 asked, What influences do teachers/librarians have over the process? The responses were open-ended but put into nine categories. The largest category was “Nothing” which meant they didn’t know what could be done or they felt what was being done was good enough. The next category was “displays.” Students wanted more displays to help promote books to students.

Year of Submission

2021

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Department

Division of School Library Studies

First Advisor

Karla Krueger, Graduate Faculty Reader

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

8-2021

Object Description

1 PDF file (37 pages)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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