Evidence, Standards, and School Librarianship: Prevailing Policies, Promising Methods, and Progress on a Research Agenda

Guided by the question, "What are the implications of national educational evidence standards for school librarianship research?," prevailing U.S. evidence-driven educational policies are examined to identify implications for school librarianship research; promising methods to contribute to building this evidence base are explored; and finally, progress on a long-term research agenda designed to enable school librarianship researchers to contribute evidence to educational policy is reviewed. As promising methods are explored, an actionable agenda is proposed that school library researchers can undertake to participate in a causal research environment.
Introduction Waves of educational reform and policy impact school libraries regardless of whether libraries are explicitly included in those initiatives. Indeed, silence from policy makers regarding the library is often [...]