Haves, Halves, and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement in California Page: 178

Research Question 2
Research Question 2: How does student achievement vary, if at all, in relationship to the
levels of combined certificated and clerical staffing in school library media programs?
Overall results indicate a positive significant relationship between total staffing levels
and student achievement. At the fourth grade level, there was a significant negative correlation
between English Language Arts CST scores and total staffing, r =-.04, p =.02, but the
significance of the correlation disappeared or the direction of the relationship became positive in
partial correlations controlling for community variables, the strongest positive value being r
=. 12, p <.001, when controlling for parent education. All of these correlations were very weak
and would not alone lead to a rejection of the null hypothesis that student achievement does not
vary in relationship to total library staffing levels.
At the eighth grade level, though, bivariate correlations between total library staffing and
both English Language Arts and social studies CST scores were significant at r =.12, p <.001
and r =.19, p <.001 respectively. The strength of these relationships tended to increase with
partial correlations controlling for school and community variables. The strongest partial
correlations for both English Language Arts and social studies controlled for ethnicity, at r = .22,
p <.001 and r = .28,p <.001 respectively.
At the eleventh grade, bivariate correlations between total library staffing levels and CST
scores were again stronger than at middle or elementary levels at r = .54, p <.001 for English
Language Arts CST scores and r = .56, p <.001 for U.S. History scores. The strength of those
associations remained in partial correlations with school and community variables. For English
Language Arts, those correlations ranged from r =.49, p <.001 when controlling for average
teacher salary to r = .59, p <.001 when controlling for percentage of English learners. For U.S.

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