Date of Award
Summer 7-1-2022
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education in Instructional Technology
Department
Instructional Technology
Committee Chair
Dr. Julie Moore
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Olga Koz
Second Committee Member
Dr. Camille Sutton-Brown
Abstract
In 2020 and 2021, K-12 instructional settings diversified worldwide due to COVID-19 pandemic-response. During the 2021-2022 school year, a new instructional setting of K-12 remote-synchronous learning launched in a progressive, southeastern U.S. public school district. Substantial school district realignment occurred to serve this new setting; bypassed, however, was a dedicated school librarian position. Despite positive national impact data and the school library profession’s demonstrated ability since the mid-twentieth century to evolve, newly created positions have been funded nationally in schools to evolve with the times, often at the expense of school library positions. Role tensions may emerge between school librarians and other school positions. School librarians’ lived experiences within this congruence of tensions provides a unique research opportunity. The methodology of the study is phenomenology. A purposive, non-random sample of six school librarians comprised the sample population. Initial and follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the participants, and data was analyzed to yield rich description of the essence of the participants’ lived experiences. The findings suggest that trends toward standardization of their professional role(s) are countered by the pandemic’s contributions to student learning loss and thus, a critical need exists for the school librarians’ role(s). Implications for school librarians are that they are strongly positioned to thrive during further evolutions of their role(s) as instructional settings continue to diversify and students’ needs change. Implications for school administrators are that school librarians are willing and ready to assume a critical role in literacy instruction that they foresee as urgent.