Assessing school libraries as learning environments

Examining students’ perceptions in third, fourth and fifth grades

Abstract

This paper presents the full results from a 2008/2009 research study examining the application of a learning environment paradigm to the school library setting. The preliminary results from the examination of the Fifth Grade science classes were presented at the IASL 2009 Research Forum. We now report the process of completing our comparative examination of the relationships among student perceptions of science programs and library programs with Third (ages 8 and 9), Fourth (ages 9 and 10) and Fifth (ages 10 and 11) Grades. In addition, we extend the assessment of these relationships to a correlation with student achievement on the standardized State tests for Texas.