September 25, 2020
Soulen featured as SLC monthly researcher
Dr. Rita Soulen
Dr. Rita Soulen, assistant professor of library science, was highlighted in the September 2020 issue of School Library Connection.
Dr. Soulen was the monthly researcher spotlight. The interview focused on her recently published article “School Librarian Interventions for New Teacher Resilience: A CLASS II Field Study.” Her research was published in the April edition of School Library Research, the research journal of the American Association of School Librarians.
Dr. Soulen
You can read the abstract for Dr. Soulen’s research below and access her journal article on the American Library Association’s website.
School librarians occupy a unique position to offer supports for first-year teachers to build teachers’ resilience, reduce their burnout, and ensure retention. Fifteen school librarians recruited twenty-six new teachers in their schools to form the treatment group. A comparison group of twenty-six new teachers were matched by initial scores on a resilience scale, by school level, and by Title I status of the school. The treatment group received interventions under the Continuum of Care model, which I developed. Following treatment, the comparison group and treatment group were surveyed for level of resilience, burnout, and retention. Quantitative data were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA, ANCOVA, and binary logistic regression. Interviews of school librarian-new teacher pairs revealed the lived experiences of participants. Those in the treatment group received significantly higher levels of mentoring and collaboration than did those in the comparison group. The effect of the interaction between the level of resilience of the treatment group and age was significant. Interviews show that school librarians and new teachers valued their relationship and voiced the effect of resilience, burnout, and retention. Reaching out to new teachers to bridge the gap between the library and classroom should be considered as best practice for school librarians.