Teaching Library Skills: A Source or Process Approach? A Research Study

The study described in this report was designed to determine the dominant approach to library skills instruction in the schools of the DeKalb County School System (Georgia), and whether any relationships existed between certain demographic variables and the approach being used. Library media specialists were asked to respond to a two-part questionnaire to indicate the frequency with which students received instruction in both source-oriented and process-oriented library skills. A t-test was used to determine whether the difference between the frequency of use of the two approaches was statistically significant (less than .001), and possible relationships between any of the demographic variables and the approach being used to teach library skills were tested using an analysis of variance. It was found that, although the responses of the library media specialists indicated the dominance of the source approach to library skills instruction in the DeKalb County schools, a statistically significant relationship (.029) between the level of current assignment and the process-oriented statements indicated that students were receiving more instruction in process oriented library skills. The survey questionnaire and cover letter are appended. (19 references) (MAB)