This research study is a continuation from assignment 2 where we looked at our own wiki and also the wiki of other person and then further refined both the research questions. The statement of problem (Appendix 1), research question (Appendix 2) and statements that explain how the research question arises from or is connected to the literature and is of practical importance (Appendix 3) was discussed in assignment 2.  Assignment 3 will further discuss the research methods, research design, ethical issues and paradigms.

The library is a bridge between classrooms and home. The major focus of this study is to find out whether the promotion of school libraries on social media increase the use of parents and carers. There is a significant lack of scholarly research focusing on school library marketing and promotion through social media. Research in this area will assist in raising awareness and advocating the school libraries through social media. Therefore, this study seeks to examine librarians’ use of social media for promoting library’s resources, activities and services in a primary school in New South Wales.

Research Question:

According to Bryman (2012, p. 14), a research question is a question that provides an explicit statement of what it is the researcher wants to know about. According to McMillan (2010, p. 9), the following questions should be consider when evaluating a research question.

1. Is the general purpose of the study clear?
2. Is the study significant? Will it make a practical or theoretical contribution?
3. Is the introduction well organized and clear?

The research question from assignment 2 was modified as it was too broad. Considering that this is a small scale research over a period of 4 weeks, the following research question would be more appropriate.

To what extent does the promotion of the primary school library on social media increase the use of parents and carers?

Research Statement

In this 21st Century, where a paradigm shift in communicating library services to users is evident, a modern and contemporary tool would be needed to promote library and information resources service. Social media is an integral part of current culture. It is a modern and contemporary media for effective promotion of library and information services in the technological era.

Social media in the education sector has become popular and proved to be useful and successful. There are a lot of good primary schools with Facebook pages that do a good job and serve their purposes. Parents have a huge role to play in encouraging children, not only to read but also to participate in the activities and use the resources provided by school. Bulletin boards and marquees are great, but these days it’s not enough to capture everyone’s attention. Social media can positively change the perception of a library and promote all that we do in the library. Activities like book fairs, book clubs, competitions, National Simultaneous Story time can be promoted online by tweeting the information or posting it on Facebook. Scholastic has made it easy by offering a webpage for my book fair and pre-scripted messages for Facebook and Twitter. Social media is a great tool to publicize library hours, library club information, library resources, share library programs and promotions online, and it will give everyone limitless access to library information. Social media gives us a chance to be our own publicist, and set the tone of the library brand we create (Brown, 2017). Mark Moran co-founder of Sweet Search states librarians should be enthusiastic marketers of themselves, the library, and its programs and promotions. Instead of putting your lesson plans in a

journey into using social media for school library services.  The article also stresses the need for social media guidelines and its importance in a school setting where the age of students, institutional values, and parental concerns necessitate consideration. Another gem we have uncovered is that one of the affordances of social media is the almost instant data that users can collect as feedback to inform future practice. When we share our programs, events, and tutorials on Facebook, we quickly learn if a particular post is important for parents by the number of views, likes, and shares it receives (Stower, 2016).

The following guidelines developed by National library of New Zealand would be helpful in developing social media policy. This is especially important for volunteer members of your library team and those new to using social media.

Guidelines should clarify:

• who can do what, on which platforms
• issues of privacy and security — your own and your students’
• what is appropriate content
• permissions for sharing content such as students’ work or material covered by copyright
• how your library’s social media use complies with school-wide policies.

Schools can decide which social media platform suits their needs.

The following section will discuss the research design.

 

 

Research design

A research design provides a framework for the collection and analysis of data (Bryman, 2012 p. 46). The purpose of research design is to specify a plan for generating empirical evidence that will be used to answer the research questions (McMillan, 2006 p. 2) Research design is a very important part of an investigation, since certain limitations and cautions in interpreting the results are related to each design and because the research design determines how the data should be analyzed (McMillan, 2006 p. 22).  Different research designs such as experimental design, cross sectional or survey design, longitudinal design, case study design and comparative design were taken into consideration. Each of these designs is discussed in brief.

Experimental design has a particular purpose in mind: to investigate cause-and-effect relationships between interventions and measured outcomes (McMillan, 2006 p. 24). True experimental design is not suitable for this research design as physical and biological sciences frequently use true experimental designs because they provide the most powerful approach for determining the effect of one factor on another (McMillan, 2006 p. 24). True experiments are especially difficult to employ in applied research, in which researchers minimize changes to naturally occurring conditions. (McMillan, 2006 p. 24). Randomized experimental research involves something very specific, namely, the use of comparison groups that have been randomly assigned. Random assignment means what it says: assignment of subjects to comparison groups has been done completely at random, like flipping a coin or drawing names out of a hat. Random assignment strengthens the argument that any apparent effect of the intervention is not due to other factors, such as inherent differences among the groups. A quasi-experimental design approximates the true experimental type. The purpose of the method is the same-to determine cause and effect-and there is direct manipulation of conditions (McMillan, 2006 p. 24). However, there is no random assignment of subjects. This will not be suitable for this small piece of research.

The most appropriate design for this small scale piece of research would be a cross sectional research design. Cross-sectional studies provide a clear ‘snapshot’ of the outcome and the characteristics associated with it, at a specific point in time. In regards to the current research, the outcome can be compared as the survey will be given to parents and carers two weeks before and two weeks after the social media promotion. Unlike an experimental design, where there is an active intervention by the researcher to produce and measure change or to create differences, cross-sectional designs focus on studying and drawing inferences from existing differences between people, subjects, or phenomena. While longitudinal studies involve taking multiple measures over an extended period of time, cross-sectional research is focused on finding relationships between variables at one moment in time. Since this research is small scale and done over a period of four weeks, it is more appropriate choice for current research project. In cross sectional research design, data are collected by questionnaire or by structured interviews. This research project also involves a likert survey for data collection.

However, there are limitations to cross sectional designs. Results obtained are static and time bound and, therefore, gives no indication of a sequence of events or reveal historical or temporal contexts. Studies cannot be utilized to establish cause and effect relationships. This design only provides a snapshot of analysis so there is always the possibility that a study could have differing results if another time-frame had been chosen. Also, there is no follow up to the findings.

Case study design is also not suitable as the basic case study entails the detailed and intensive analysis of a single case. Secondly, it is carried over a lengthy period. Comparative designs entails studying two contrasting cases using more or less identical methods. Here a researcher may collect data from number of countries and that are comparable. Comparative design are carried on a large scale over the countries and hence cannot be carried in a small scale research.

The quantitative method will be used to answer the research question using cross sectional likert survey. This will be discussed in the next section.

Research Methods

The most fundamental difference in methodology of research is whether it is quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method.  According to McMillan (2010 p. 5), quantitative research involves the use of numerical calculations to summarize, describe, and explore relationships among traits whereas in qualitative research, the emphasis is on conducting studies in natural settings using mostly verbal descriptions, resulting in stories and case studies rather than statistical reports and finally mixed methods has qualities of both quantitative and qualitative designs.

This would involve beginning with quantitative Likert scale survey questionnaire given to parents and carers two weeks before and two weeks after the social media promotion begins on their awareness of the social media campaign and its influence. Cross sectional designs generally use survey techniques to gather data, they are relatively inexpensive and take up little time to conduct. This will be suitable for a small scale research. Survey research comprises a cross sectional design in relation to which data are collected predominantly by questionnaire or by structured interview on more than one case and at a single point in time in order to collect a body of quantitative or quantifiable data in connection with two or more variables, which are then examined to detect patterns of associations (Bryman, 2012 p. 60).

Survey designs are procedures in quantitative research in which you administer a survey or questionnaire to a small group of people (called the sample) to identify trends in attitudes, opinions, behaviours, or characteristics of a large group of people called the population (Creswell, 2012 p. 15). The Likert scale is essentially a multiple- indicator or multiple- item measure of a set of attitudes relating to a particular area (Bryman, 2012 p. 166). The goal of the Likert scale is to measure intensity of feelings about the area in question (Bryman, 2012 p. 166). It comprises of series of statements called items and the respondents is asked to indicate their level of agreement starting from strongly agree to strongly disagree. This approach is suitable for small scale research because it uses multiple indicator to measure a concept.

However, there are errors in survey research. Sampling error arises because it is extremely unlikely that one will end up with a truly representative sample, even when probability sampling is employed (Bryman, 2012 p. 205). Non sampling error arises from activities or events that are related to the sampling process and that are connected with the issue of generalizability or external validity of findings (Bryman, 2012 p. 2015). In this small piece of research, non-response from respondents can be an example of non-sampling error.  There may be data collection error. This source of error includes such factors as: poor question wording in self- completion questionnaires or structured interviews; poor interviewing techniques; and flaws in the administration of research instruments (Bryman, 2012 p. 205). The final error is data processing error that arises from coding of answers.

In this small piece of research, the data collected before and after will be compared to check whether the promotion of social media increase the use of parents and carers in a primary school.

Ethical Issues

In all steps of the research process, it is necessary to engage in ethical practices. Ethics should be a primary consideration rather than an afterthought, and it should be at the forefront of the researcher’s agenda (Creswell, 2012 p. 17). Educational researchers need to be aware of and anticipate ethical issues in their research. They have been usefully broken down into four main areas (Bryman, 2012, p. 135). Each of these areas will be discussed in turn, outlining how they apply to the design and methods of this research.

The first ethical principle is whether there is harm to participants. Research that is likely to harm participants is regarded by most people as unacceptable. Harm can be physical harm, harm to participants ‘development, loss of self-esteem, stress or inducing subjects to perform reprehensible acts. The participation in this small scale piece of research is voluntary. The issue of harm to participants is further addressed in ethical codes by advocating care over maintaining the confidentiality of records (Bryman, 2012 p. 136). Participants will be free to withdraw at any time. However, Bryman (2012, p. 136) also points that the need for confidentiality can present dilemmas for researchers.

The second ethical principle is whether there is a lack of informed consent. This issue is highly debatable in social research. Informed consent means that prospective research participants should be given as much information as might be needed to make an informed decision about whether or not they wish to participate in a study (Bryman, 2012 p. 138). Parents and carers will be informed about this research through school’s websites and newsletters. Informed consent forms will be signed by research participants. The advantage of such forms is that they give respondents an opportunity to be fully informed of the nature of the research and the implications of their participation at the outset (Bryman, 2012 p. 140).

The third area of ethical concern relates to the issue of the degree to which invasions of privacy can be condoned (Bryman, 2012 p. 142). Participants’ survey questionnaire will be anonymous for this piece of research. Participants will also have a choice to refuse to answer to certain questions on whatever grounds they feel are justified.

Finally the last ethical issue is whether deception is involved. Deception occurs when researchers represent their work as something other than what it is (Bryman, 2012 p. 143). In this small scale research, there is a very less chance of any kind of deception. Research should be designed, reviewed and undertaken to ensure integrity, quality and transparency (Bryman, 2012 p. 144). Considering all these principles in mind, a proper social media policy will be formulated. This policy will align with NSW Department of Education social media policy.

Research Paradigms

A paradigm is a ‘cluster of beliefs and dictates which for scientists in a particular discipline influence what should be studied, how research should be done, and how results should be interpreted. (Bryman, 2012 p. 630). Paradigm as a term is used here to refer to a world view or to a high-order way of thinking about or categorizing the approach or logic that underpins all aspects of a research undertaking from the intent or motivation for the research to the final design, conduct and outcomes of the research. This small scale research was initiated by a research interest followed by research question. This part of research question sits within a positivist paradigms.

The constructivist researcher is most likely to rely on qualitative data collection methods and analysis or a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods (mixed methods). Quantitative data may be utilised in a way, which supports or expands upon qualitative data and effectively deepens the description. (Mckenzie and Knipe,2006). This paradigm is not appropriate for this small scale research.

The pragmatic paradigm provides an opportunity for “multiple methods, different worldviews, and different assumptions, as well as different forms of data collection and analysis in the mixed methods study” (Creswell, 2003, p.12). For this small piece of research, pragmatic paradigm will be more suitable. The pragmatic approach can be used in both qualitative and quantitative methods which are matched to the specific questions and purpose of the research. The data collection tools may include tools from both positivist and interpretivist paradigms. E.g. Interviews, observations and testing and experiments. (Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006).

Pragmatism is not committed to any one system of philosophy or reality. Pragmatist researchers focus on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the research problem (Creswell, 2003, p.11).. The pragmatic paradigm places “the research problem” as central and applies all approaches to understanding the problem (Creswell, 2003, p.11). With the research question ‘central’, data collection and analysis methods are chosen as those most likely to provide insights into the question with no philosophical loyalty to any alternative paradigm (Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006).

Conclusion                                                                                

After reading the literature, I am able to understand the purpose of educational research and how research studies are designed and conducted.  This small piece of research project outlined a research design which attempts to answer the research question presented in the introduction. To improve upon this study, a further study on promotion of school libraries through social networking among parents and carers will be helpful. The purpose of this is not to review but rather to suggest that such platforms might be of invaluable help for a school library. The bottom line is that social media is a big part of our day to day life and there’s no point of keeping it away from the education process. School, college and university staff should be encouraged to make use of technology for student and parent communication. The benefits of social media in today’s digital world to promote a school library are obvious, starting with healthier parent-teacher relationships and all the way to permanently changing the way our children will learn. Not only teacher librarians but all members of school’s community can play a role in promoting the social media by following the school’s social media guidelines. This study points to the use of social media to promote a primary school library. However, it is important to note that this is only one perspective to promote school libraries. Further studies and research on addressing these should contribute to clearer understanding of the topic.

 

References        

Brown, T. (2017). 5 Reasons School Librarians Should Use Social Media. Accessed January 18, 2019 from http://edublog.scholastic.com/post/5-reasons-school-librarians-should-use-social-media#

 

Bryman, A. (2016). Social research methods (5th ed.). Oxford, UK: OUP.

 

Creswell, J. W. (2012). The process of conducting research using quantitative and qualitative approaches. In Educational researc.h: planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.) (pp. 8-24). Boston: Pearson.

Lambert, M. (2012). A beginner’s guide to doing your education research project. London: Sage.

 

Mackenzie, N., & Knipe, S. (2006). Research dilemmas: Paradigms, methods and methodology. Issues in Educational Research 16 (2), 193- 205. Accessed January 16, 2019 from http://www.iier.org.au/iier16/mackenzie.html

 

McMillan, J., & Schumacher, S. (2006). Research designs and reading research reports. In research in education : evidence-based inquiry (6^th ed.) (pp. 21-49). Boston : Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

 

National Library of New Zealand. Guidelines for social media use. Retrieved on January 18, 2019 from https://natlib.govt.nz/schools/school-libraries/library-services-for-teaching-and-learning/your-school-library-online/social-media-and-the-school-library

 

Punch, K.F. & Oancea, A. (2014). Extract from Theory and method in education research. In Introduction to research methods in education (2^nd ed.) (pp. 19-20). Thousand Oakes, Cal: Sage Publications.

 

Stower, H (2016). Using social media to support school library services. Connections, 98, 5-7. https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-98/using-social-media-to-support-school-library-services/

 

 

 

Appendices

Appendix 1

Draft research question 1 (Brahmbhatt, 2018)

How to promote the significance of school libraries to all the stakeholders in this digital world?

Strengths

Bryman (2012, p. 9) states that a research question must be interrogatory and the draft question is interrogatory. Bryman (2012, p. 11) also suggests that research questions are crucial because they will provide your readers with a clearer sense of what your research is about. The draft research question clearly states the purpose of doing the research. It is about the importance of promoting school libraries among staff, students and parents community. One of the criteria for evaluating a research question is it is should be relevant and the above problem is relevant in Australian schools context.

Areas for improvement

The above research question fail to specify the targeted audience; whether the focus of research is high school library or primary school library. Also the word ‘stakeholders’ includes everyone in school community; parents, teachers, students. This makes the research too broad. Hence, it is best to focus only on students at this stage. However while collecting data, surveying or filling up a questionnaire, parents and teachers opinion can be taken into consideration.

Lewis and Munn (2004:5) called research questions ‘the vital first steps in any research’. As Lewis and Munn (2004:14) pointed out: ‘It is unlikely that the first set of research questions you produce will be the set you finally use’. After putting a question or even a couple of questions down on paper, it is vital to evaluate these questions to determine whether they would be effective research questions or whether they need more revising and refining.

A recommended version of draft research questions will be as follows.

Refined question 1: What will be the impact of promoting primary school libraries on students ‘achievement?

Appendix 2

Some researchers prefer statements to research questions. A statement of the problem in research is a claim that outlines the problem in the study. In some studies the specific research questions will replace a general statement of purpose. Questions to ask 1. Is the general purpose of the study clear? 2. Is the study significant? Will it make a practical or theoretical contribution? 3. Is the introduction well organized and clear? (Wergin, 2010 p.4)

Both the above researches by Brahmbhatt and Coates is current and relevant in Australian context. Recently, there had been a conference where the need to advocate the school libraries was discussed and therefore the research by Brahmbhatt is relevant. Whereas, there has also been a debate on whether generification will help to increase the circulation and encourage students to read for pleasure. This is also very relevant in this time. According to Creswell (2012), the research statement contains the major focus of the study, the participants in the study, and the location or site of the inquiry. This purpose statement is then narrowed to research questions or predictions that you plan to answer in your research study. The following statement by Brahmbhatt (2018) and Coates (2018) in the wiki post, also explains how the research question arises from literature.

Brahmbhatt (2018) statement- Soft link announced the campaign at the 2017 ASLA conference in Sydney, and the response was immediate, positive and huge.

The first and foremost problem is to identify a research problem. Australian School Library Association also explains that our role as a teacher librarian is to promote the school libraries and therefore the question arises whether generification can one of the steps in achieving this.  The basic aim of both the researches is to promote school library and encourage reading.

Brahmbhatt (2018) statement is taken from Softlink which is a very authentic source and is also this campaign ‘Students need school libraries was started in 2017. Libraries should be right in schools and we must give pupils the opportunity to go a quiet place to do extra study or to choose a book to read (The Guardian, 2016) shows the need for the promotion of school libraries.

The range of source seems adequate for the contextualised claims made.

One of the characteristics of a good research by Lambert (2012) is that the research should be ethical. It should not cause harm or disadvantage to yourself or your participants. Four main areas have been isolated by Bryman in relation to ethical issues of research. These are harm to participants, lack of informed consent, invasion of privacy and whether deception is involved (Bryman, 2012). Both the researches meet this criteria.

Both the research is more focused on qualitative methods and failed to take into consideration the quantitative methods. Also there is moderate degree of generalisation. There is also a small range of

Appendix 3

Brahmbhatt (2018) – Libraries plays such a major role in shaping students ‘development. It is highly frustrating when the role of school libraries and teacher librarian is questioned. Teacher librarian are expertise who works along with teachers in planning and programming the syllabus. Therefore the research question by Brahmbhatt is of practical importance. Also ‘The Guardian’ (2016) newspapers article states, in recent years the picture has changed; the proliferation of personal electronic devices means information is instantly available almost anywhere and the printed words is in decline’. This statement clearly explains how relevant the research topic is in today’s digital context.

However in both the cases, other factors that could also affect the research are not taken into consideration. For example, what could be other possible factors that also affect the research in action?

Finally to conclude with, as a teacher librarian I am very much interested in this topic of promoting the school libraries. Today’s libraries are about more than books- they are valuable centres for people to access information and learn new skills. Not only school libraries but even public libraries are facing funding issues. NSW public libraries budget in the 2018-19 was slashed down by 5% and hence the campaign ‘Renew our Libraries ‘was started.

All this factors had inspired me to learn more about the topic. The steps in the research process has help me to gain the understanding of how research works.