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An investigation of the relationship between qualitative and quantitative standards and the students knowlegde of the use of books and libraries

University of British Columbia

Library literature and educational writings appraising school libraries imply that if qualitative and quantitative standards of school libraries were sufficiently high, the students would be proficient in the knowledge, of the use, of books and libraries. No evidence, however, is presented to support this assumption. The lack of empirical evidence prompted the present study as an attempt to discover if a positive correlation does exist between qualitative and quantitative standards of school libraries and the students’ knowledge of the use of hooks and libraries. The instrument used to ascertain the qualitative and quantitative standards of nine senior secondary schools in three British Columbia school districts was a closed-question interview questionnaire consisting of four major divisions. The results of the questionnaire were tabulated as numerical scores and placed in rank order for each of the four major divisions and for the total. Two hundred seventy-eight students in nine senior secondary schools were tested under standard procedures using the test A Library Orientation Test for College Freshmen. Intact groups of English 40 or English 91 students were tested in each of the nine schools. Test score results were tabulated for each part of the nine sub-tests for the test as a whole. Means of the results for each of the nine parts of the test were tabulated by school and placed in rank order. Correlations between mean score ranks and interview questionnaire score ranks were computed for each of the nine sub-tests and, the total test. In this study it was found that generally a low positive rank correlation exists. The correlation did not depart significantly from zero. It is suggested that, further studies be conducted, to isolate and to control variables which may have a bearing on the relationship between qualitative and quantitative standards of school libraries and the students' knowledge of the use of hooks and libraries.

Text

2011-09-14

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/37323

Education

University of British Columbia

Graduate