Putting Evidence to Work in Your Library

Course

Presenting Evidence for Change [3:40]

Learn how to use objective and subjective data to advocate for changes in your library.

Presenting evidence can take a number of different forms. Perhaps your next step is presenting at your state, regional, or national conference to demonstrate to others the results of an intervention or experiment that you performed in your program. Maybe you're simply going to lead the next professional development meeting for the other librarians in your district or perhaps it's time to take the evidence to the administration to make adjustments in policies or funding.

The point that I want to emphasize most here is that in presenting evidence in evidence-based practice, the strongest call to action and the biggest sense of urgency is when you bring all the different types of evidence together, foundational process, outcomes, objective, subjective, and a mix of all of those.

Let's take a look at a quick scenario. Remember our ELL students and the graphic novels they were using to improve their reading comprehension? Well, the results from that study were pretty good.

You had a look at some foundational evidence of using visuals and imagery with ELL students and some process evidence from a few articles in which other librarians indicated they had some success with using graphic novels in other ways in the library. You then conducted your study and you now have outcomes evidence that you can take to your principal. The class that worked with graphic novels had bigger improvements in reading comprehension than did the ELL students in the other classes that didn't use graphic novels.

You've created a quick one sheet visual infographic that demonstrates this to your principal and you've set up a meeting. Your principal might take a quick glance at the infographic and you might talk about the data with them, but you've also got a powerful subjective story to add. You tell your principal about Rafiq.

Rafiq has had some major obstacles socially and academically, but since you introduced graphic novels to his class, he is now read three entire series of graphic novels and two classic novels that were adapted to graphic format. He's visiting the library twice a week on his own time and you're running out of materials for him. Your principal is starting to nod their head and is asking about Rafiq's test scores which have improved and that's when you pull out the second sheet of paper, the budget request for more graphic novels. It's the combination of all these types of evidence that can help you improve your practice the most.

When collecting evidence of your own practice and looking to make changes, it may not be enough to just look at grades, circulation, statistics, or standardized test scores. It also may not be enough to be using just anecdotal stories, teacher testimonials or student ideas.

The most powerful evidence and changes come in the combination of both the objective and subjective evidence. That is when you can really move forward in your school library practice knowing that you're making sound decisions based on evidence from many different sources.

Presenting Your Evidence

After you've collected evidence of all kinds—beginning with foundational evidence to determine some of the changes you might need to make to your program, looking at some of the process evidence that may indicate possible directions for improvement based on trends in the field and experiences reported by others, and moving on to outcomes evidence by doing some data collection of your own—you will need to present that evidence to others. Use the Planning Template in the Resources below and Reflect & Practice activity below to think about effective ways to do this.

RESOURCES

Template

REFLECT & PRACTICE:

Use the questions on page 9 of the Planning Template to how you can share your research findings within your school community, as well as within the professional community of school librarians.

MLA Citation

"Putting Evidence to Work in Your Library: Presenting Your Evidence." School Library Connection, January 2019, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2186033?learningModuleId=2186016&topicCenterId=2247903.

Entry ID: 2186135

Additional Resources

Bibliography.

About the Author

Jeffrey DiScala, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Darden College of Education at Old Dominion University. He earned his master's and doctorate from the University of Maryland. He is co-principal investigator for The Lilead Project, a research and professional development program for school library leaders. His research interests include education, technology, and information policies in education and professional development for school librarians and classroom teachers. He has co-authored numerous articles in publications such as Library Quarterly, School Library Research, School Libraries Worldwide, and Knowledge Quest.

MLA Citation

DiScala, Jeffrey. "Putting Evidence to Work in Your Library. Presenting Evidence for Change [3:40]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, January 2019, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2186033?learningModuleId=2186016&topicCenterId=2247903.

View all citation styles

https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2186033?learningModuleId=2186016&topicCenterId=2247903

Entry ID: 2186033