The role of the teacher-librarian in British Columbia secondary schools : a shared vision?

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dc.contributor.authorBetts, Bernice Louiseen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-13T00:08:24Z
dc.date.available2024-08-13T00:08:24Z
dc.date.copyright1992en_US
dc.date.issued1992
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Communication and Social Foundations
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractResearchers in teacher-librarianship, professional association leaders, library training programs, and recent government documents advocate an expanded role for teacher-librarians. The role centres on cooperative program planning and teaching, and incorporates computer-based information technologies. If teacher-librarians are to assume this expanded role, then teacher-librarians, teachers and administrators are all implicated in the change. The thesis explores whether these three groups share a vision of the expanded role of teacher-librarians in British Columbia secondary schools. The purposes of the study were to determine: 1) if teacher-librarians had already incorporated the expanded role definition into the structuring of their jobs, or whether they wished or expected to restructure their jobs in future; 2) if principals and teachers perceived tasks associated with the expanded role to be as important as traditional tasks for both current and future roles; 3) if particular priorities for the teacher-librarian's role were associated with background characteristics such as district support levels or respondents' professional training and experience. Questionnaire results from 34 teacher-librarians, 25 administrators and 73 teachers raised doubts about the existence of a shared vision of the secondary teacher-librarian's role, either within or between the sub-groups. Teacher-librarians structured their current jobs in highly divergent ways. Their aspirations and expectations for future job structuring were somewhat less divergent, with the greatest cohesiveness shown in their rejection of subprofessional tasks. Most stated that their highest priorities were in task areas associated with cooperative program planning and teaching, but the time they devoted to curricular collaboration and working with class groups in their current role often did not reflect these priorities. Computer-based information services were generally of low priority. Principals and particularly teachers held a wide range of views about which aspects of the teacher-librarian's role were most important. Their averaged current role ratings tended to give greater priority to professional activities related to resource provision and library management than to involvement with students, curriculum and computers. Future priorities increased the emphasis on both cooperative program planning and teaching, and computer-based information services. Averaged ratings for both current and future roles minimized subprofessional task areas, although there was high variability in teachers' responses for these areas. District policies for school library programs appeared to relate to distinctive "shapes" for the teacher-librarian's role. A district focus on cooperative planning and teaching or information technology was reflected in teacher-librarians' job structuring. Teacher-librarians in districts with less centralization were more reluctant to take on aspects of the expanded role. Teachers' and principals' perceptions of the teacher-librarian's role also seemed to reflect each district's orientation, although there may a backlash among teachers against a strong district stance on curricular collaboration. Teacher-librarians' professional training and library experience correla­ted positively with task areas associated with cooperative program planning and teaching. Teachers and principals who were more accepting of the teacher-librarian's curricular role had also devoted more time to learning about library programs, or had incorporated the library extensively into their own teaching programs. Teacher-librarians whose libraries had more types of technology spent more time offering computer-based services, but this group had no greater wish than others to devote time to computers in future.en
dc.format.extent185 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/17240
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectUN SDG 4: Quality Educationen
dc.titleThe role of the teacher-librarian in British Columbia secondary schools : a shared vision?en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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