Anxiety, attitude and information use behaviour of school teachers in central schools

Abstract

The research paper presents the findings of a study that explores the use of school libraries and attitude, anxiety and level of satisfaction of teachers towards using information sources and services, level of collaboration between librarians / library staff and teaching activities, searching methods, difficulties faced and level of association between personal characteristics and use of library resources.A questionnaire survey was conducted by distributing 195 questionnaires to the teachers of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools in Hyderabad Karnataka, India covering about 12 CBSE schools of the region, obtaining 175 questionnaires (89.74%).The results showed that about less than half of the teachers generally did use their school libraries daily mainly to refer books, which indicates that more than half of the teachers do not use much of their information resources effectively, mainly due to the inadequacy of their school libraries in terms of educational materials. In addition, teachers typically did not collaborate with their school librarian in planning their lessons or other academic activities, although 61.2% agree that they collaborate with each other.The teachers of school libraries responded were above 40 years of age accounts to 36.6% and 52% of the school teachers possess Post graduation and their experience would serve school libraries, strength in building model library. The study provided an insight into the situation of school library use by teachers in Karnataka, India and their related factors. This insight could in turn yield initiatives on various aspects of school library research, such as the role of the school library in the school curriculum, and how school library usage can be improved by teachers and school librarian through better collaboration.The study proposes that teachers are the first to get themselves more familiarized in utilizing and understanding the role of school libraries in inculcating and motivating students to develop information culture and the role of librarian in developing innovative services through school library outreach programmes.The paper notifies the significance of the school library especially in the Indian context in the school curriculum, presents the elements that can contribute to or work against the use of the school library by teachers, and most importantly, the results of the demands the ways and means to improve the situation for better utilization of information resources by the library to support curriculum and develop sense of collaboration among school library.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sllim.v3i2.446Sri Lankan Journal of Librarianship and Information Management Volume 3, No. 2(2008) pp. 16-27