LIBRARY MEDIA TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE ON THE STUDENT MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE TOWARDS THE USE OF SCHOOL RESOURCE CENTRE

Aligned with 21st-century skills need, the roles of School Resource Center (SRC) in supporting student performance and motivation should be highlighted in order to produce knowledge-based society (students). Act as a hub of learning, SRC encourages students to develop life-long learning habit, students will have the availability to process and choose the quality information for them with help from certified Library Media Teacher and strong library programs (Zainudin & Ismail, 2010). In Malaysia, every school must have its SRC. There are 7,772 SRC at Primary School and 2,408 SRC at Secondary School. (Ministry of Education, 2019.) The skill of 21st century that has been discussed by many scholars are; learning and innovation skills, technology, media and information skills, and life and career skills. SRC will equip students with technology and media literacy. By having this skill, students can recognize which technology and media that help them in doing the assignments or to complete their daily task. Another skill is learning and innovation skills whereby students will have ability to developing some new ideas to solve problem compare than just memorizing. In today's job market, the employer not necessary to hire the smartest people but they need people who can communicate a vision to them but also can lead to the vision. (The Malaysian Smart School, 1997; Trilling & Fadel, 2009). In this study, the measurement of students' performance and motivation is focused on former students that sit for the lower level examination. In Malaysia, all Form 3 students at the age of 15-yearold have to take that examination. For this, two of the subjects: History and Geography would be assessed via assignments, practical tests, projects, field study and case study. (Chen, 2014). Based on the new requirement, they need to go SRC to search related materials for their History and Geography assessment, as these two subjects are not examination based. Students have to complete it within the time given and need to get guidance from subject teachers and Library Media Teacher to assist help them get the right resource and information in the SRC to achieve high mark based on the rubric score that has been set up by the Examination Syndicate of Ministry of Education. (The Star Online, 2014). From the previous literature (Boelens, 2010; Hoffman, 2016; Yusuf, 2014), students have difficulty in accessing the resources in SRC, an insufficient program in SRC, technology usage and competency of Library Media Teacher. The topic was chosen because of insufficient appropriate supplemental reading (collections), lack of quality library program/activities, technical problems in accessing information resources (technology) and quality of Library Media Teacher, which contributes to poor academic performance and motivation. Study of the usage of SRC towards student performance and motivation is lacking in Malaysia. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the effectiveness of SRC among students based on LMT perspectives. Hence the objectives of the study are: 1. To identify how the student can perform better with the use of SRC. 2. To identify how the student can get motivated with the use of SRC. II. LITERATURE REVIEW International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions or IFLA (2015) has been defined the school libraries as a digital learning space and a school’s physical whereby students can read, think, do research, inquiry in order for them to acquire knowledge to grow their personal, cultural and social skills. In Malaysia, the school library known as School Resource Centre (SRC). One of the most important in SRC is collections. The collections or resources in SRC will reflex the success of learning and literacy in schools. The better collections are when the collections in SRC are meet schools' need and well managed (National Library New Zealand, 2018). As stated by the American Library Association (2012) cited in Strong (2014), a strong SRC program is a led by a credential librarian; has increased hours of access for both individual student visits and group visits by classes; and has large collections print and electronic resources with access from school and from home. Information literacy one of the most important programs that be held in SRC because it is one of the programs that can help a person to create lifelong readers and learners for 21st century by using various of technology (Novotny, 2017). Johnson (2012) stated that technology one of factor to develop information skills among students in this 21st century era. By using technology, they are able to get involved in the digital world to search for more information that they need. Teacher-Librarian as an educator plays an important role to guide and educate students on how to find, evaluate and use the information from printed or electronic resources. Teacher-Librarian is a qualified, professionally trained staff, whose role is not only to keep the collections up to date and seek for the appropriate material but as well to contribute towards the curriculum and mediate between the teachers and the students. LMT in Malaysia are teachers that have academic qualification for curriculum subject and trained professionally in the discipline of education. Many of them have a limited library and information science qualification. Once appointed as LMT, they need to attend an Advanced of 45-Hour School Resource Centre Management after their basic 35-hour training (Shyh-Mee, Kiran & Singh, 2015; Raja Abdullah & Saidina. 2003; Abrizah, 1999). It gives them the challenge to cope with the teaching load and increase their competency as an LMT. According to Yusuf (2014), a collaboration between teachers and TeacherLibrarian is the main reason for the effectiveness of the SRC. However, Teacher-Librarian in Malaysia, known as Library Media Teacher (LMT) whereby they not necessary from Library Management field but they are the qualified professional teacher in their specific subject taught. As cited by Lohmiller, (2010) in Yusuf (2014), from the collaboration, LMT could choose the suitable reading materials to encourage reading among the students. Students that find the reading materials meet their need assist by the LMT most likely will come again to SRC to seek further assistant from LMT especially if there are new reading materials in the SRC. LMT ought to obtain competencies to manage SRC collections, organize the program in SRC and educate students on related technology in SRC. As cited Hisle (2005) in Ida (2016), the environment of the SRC plays an important role to motivate students to stay in SRC to do assignments, reading or search for information and SRC play a role to satisfy a need for an environment that cultivates student collaboration and peer learning. A. Student Performance and Motivation Student performance in the school directly related to SRC service utilization. Selected high schools in Greater Dallas Fort Worth the school with highest teacher usage had more students who read books for pleasure, who used the SRC to study or complete assignments and the highest percentage of use in general. (Yusuf, 2014). This is supported by Gretes (2013), proved that higher-quality SRC correlates with higher scores on reading test when students get access to books provided by SRC with sufficient collections, get helped by credential LMT, and overall staffing. Hay’s model (2006), as cited in Boelen (2010) in Figure 1, showed that how students define SRC supporting their learning. Based on the model, students define SRC as a place that offers flexibility, dynamic, responsive, recreational, instructional, constructive, creative and empowering. Besides that, SRC as a hub for people to gather to build a relationship, they can learn together, knowledge can be constructed, and can develop instruction skills. FIGURE 1. SRC SUPPORT STUDENTS’ LEARNING Source: Boelen (2010) Jato et al., (2014) stated that student well performs in academic and get motivated when the SRC provide quite, good study place and offer a conducive environment for students to have full concentration. From the LMT perspective, the SRC programs motivate students to learn is significantly correlated with the importance of teaching information literacy skills. The LMT educates students and teachers on how to search for information on the Internet and with books in the SRC to create an exemplary learning product. The LMT also becomes an instructional leader when teachers come to them and ask for advice. The students get motivation from their LMT on how to search different types of information to complete their assignment. According to Small et al., (2010) the Library Media Teacher uses a variety of motivation strategies to ensure students will always come to them to seek for assistant and advice. Supported by Koirul (2015), one of the factors that influence SRC utilization by the user is motivation. Motivation is important for students so that they can utilize the SRC in order to meet their need in completing both coursework. William and Wavell (2001), supported that the motivation encourages students to explore the SRC and their resources. They promoted certain resources to others and at the same time cause voluntary help and discussion. During the discussion, it helps the clarification of the question so that students get more information. For this research, based from literature review the proposed framework as Figure 2 are; collections in SRC, programs held in SRC, competency of LMT and technology in SRC as independent variables and student performance and motivation as dependent variables. This proposed framework has been used as a guideline to construct the semi-structured interview with LMT. FIGURE 2. PROPOSED FRAMEWORK Empirical studies have been conducted on the relationship between SRC services and showed positive students' academic achievement (Goodall and Pattern, 2011). Goodall and Pattern (2011) conducted studies on the impact of SRC use and academic performance in the United Kingdom. The researchers employed the quantitative method to carry out the research. A set of questionnaires was used to elicit data from the participants. The findings of the study showed a positive relationship between the use of the SRC and academic performance. Cox and Jantti (2012) found students who access library resources do perform compare to students who don't. Similarly, Restoum and Wade (2013) reported in their findings, that students were satisfied with SRC services’ quality in terms of accessibility of collections and information resources, and further determined that providing the newest and most valuable collections and information resources will help meet users’ satisfaction and needs.

This paper describes a qualitative approach as a strategy for providing an understanding of issues being investigated. The researchers aim to explore how student can perform better and how they can get motivated with the use of SRC. These qualitative findings are elicited from the perspective of LMT due to the understanding that the main role of LMT is to meet the need of students, therefore their respected opinion is sufficient to observe the correlation intensity. This study used the face-to-face semi-structured interview in order to have in-depth result from the LMT. The participants were identified as an LMT and they were selected based on the 5-star rated SRC based on Smart School Qualification Standard (SSQS) rating. The LMT were interviewed individually in order to understand their perspective on the student performance and motivation towards the use of the SRC. The researchers have followed the procedure of the semi structured interview. The mains objectives were to investigate their perspectives on student performance and motivation towards the usage of SRC. Besides interviews, document analyze has been done right after the interview in order to have the support of the result from the interview. The interview session took place in the SRC with approximately 20 minutes - 30 minutes were digitally recorded for easier transcription and note-taking. Thematic coding of the interview enabled analyze of the qualitative information. As cited by Boyatzis (1998) in Nowell et al., (2017), ‘thematic analysis as a translator for those speaking the languages of qualitative and quantitative analyzes, enabling researchers who use different research methods to communicate with each other'. For this study, the thematic coding was derived from the proposed framework as Figure 2. The proposed framework was developed based on the finding from previous study and literature review and been use as an interview guideline.

The following findings are based on the interview carried out as a means of data collection. The structured of SRC involved the collections, programs, Library Media Teacher competency, and technology towards students’ performance and motivation as a set of themes. According to Bahagian Teknologi Pendidikan or Educational Technology Division (2017), LMT main responsibilities are management and administration of SRC, responsible for the organization of collections in SRC, encouraging reading, and encourage information literacy. The findings represent data from the interviews of five different LMT from five different schools. The significant findings from collections, programs, LMT competency and technology results the sub-themes for each independent variable and there is a new emerging finding from LMT, which is the environment. A. Collections The SRC management policy was established to ensure that SRC has a collection that meets the standards, up-to-date, efficiently and efficiently managed and optimally used. SRC management encompasses the elements of procurement and processing of materials, services, tracking and documentation following current technological developments. All (LMT) says that they have to update the collections based on the curriculum and students’ interest. This will encourage students to come to SRC to study. As explained by LMT2, “subject teacher [History and Geography] will bring students to SRC, explained to them on how to do the coursework and which materials to use but normally, students will ask me where is the school magazine, newspaper cutting, pamphlet and pictures so that they can get high mark for their coursework”. It is a requirement stated in rubric score in teachers’ and students’ guideline and question paper. Supported by LMT1 and LMT3, claim that in order to help students to get high mark for both coursework, SRC provides newspaper cutting, magazines, pictures and some of them will refer to reference books and Internet. LMT4 explained, their students will go to the Internet first and after that, they will search the materials in SRC. These collections encourage them to have High Thinking Order (HOT) that would help them in their learning whereby they need to figure out where are the resources that they need to get the high marks for their coursework. LMT5 added, their History and Geography subject committee, put their teaching aids in SRC. The Head of Committee of History and Geography put the relevant teaching aids for History and Geography in the SRC so that students can borrow particular teaching aid that relevant for their coursework as a reference to complete the coursework. However, those teaching aids only can be used inside the SRC. The collections help in student performance by providing various collections and convenient access. B. Programs All LMT agreed that a library orientation program for Form 1 students will help them to get familiar with the SRC environment, facilities and services. One of the sessions during the orientation is information literacy. For the information literacy session, not all LMT will conduct that session. As explained by LMT1, "I am not teaching them. It is an ICT teacher who will assist them in ICT class”. LMT2 stated that she and ICT teacher will collaborate conducting the information literacy session such as choose the suitable keywords for searching materials on the Internet or they learn how to do the presentation in the class. This is important because after completed their coursework, they have to present their final project in front of their classmate and subject teachers for them to be evaluated. For example, in their schools, students are allowed to bring a laptop or iPad since their school support VLE [Virtual Learning Environment]. At one session, LMT will guide them on how to access to the e-resources on their portal. Another program conducted by all schools to encourage reading habit is NILAM program. LMT1, LMT3, LMT4 stated that they don't have a fixed schedule for NILAM program. Meaning that students can come anytime to do the program. However, LMT2 and LMT5, have a fixed schedule for NILAM program whereby students have to come to SRC on a specific time to do the program but they can do program NILAM when they have relief class. NILAM program is a compulsory program in each school in Malaysia whereby students have to record every single reading material that they have read and recorded in their NILAM book. At the end of every year, the books will be an audit by NILAM committee and the students with the highest reading materials will be given certificate and award as recognition of their effort for reading. LMT3 added, besides NILAM program, they have another reading program which called DEAR. Students have to read anything at least 10 minutes every Friday. Another reading program is students required to read at least 10 minutes every day during assembly or Malay or English Language class. Supported by LMT1, they also have a reading program called Iqra' whereby students must read for 10 minutes every Monday. For the collaboration program, most of them collaborate with Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), universities, or committee. LMT1 informed that they had collaboration with another SRC to do the benchmark. By having this bench marking, they will exchange opinion and knowledge on how to improve their SRC. LMT3 gave an example; they had a collaboration with Universiti Selangor (UniSEL) and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) for information literacy session. All the LMT conducted information tracking competition in their school. This annual program held as exposure to students on how to track the information in the SRC. LMT4 added, they had collaboration one of the private university in Malaysia for the information tracking competition. The winner went to that private university main campus and had another information tracking competition with other schools. C. Library Media Teacher Competency Five LMTs agreed that they aware of their main responsibilities towards SRC. They have to manage and become an administrator for the SRC, organize the library materials, and encourage information literacy and reading as stated by Bahagian Teknologi Pendidikan (2017). All the LMT attend compulsory 35 hours’ workshop to train them on how to manage SRC. Besides that, they get helps from the Teacher Activity Centre (Pusat Kegiatan Guru) and Educational Technology Division in terms of advice. LMT is aware of the History and Geography coursework. They are available to help and guide students in the choice of accessing and using the SRC resources. As explained by LMT2, as an example, for the last year History questions, they need to have pictures, pamphlets and magazines as references to complete their History coursework and in order to get high marks according to rubric score. Added by LMT3, she said besides these references, she prepared newspaper cutting for students as references for students. She has to know which good reference books for students to complete their coursework. LMT should have communication with the subject teachers so that they can advise LMT on what collections should have in SRC. In other words, LMT and subject teacher must collaborate. LMT4 stated that sometimes they will have a program or activity with particular clubs in her school and the activities conducted inside SRC. Even though LMT is not fully conducted information literacy session in SRC, they still can assist students to search for information from the Internet. For example, LMT5 explained she put the useful website address on each PC table so that students easily to go the website that related to their coursework. LMT3 mentioned that she teaches students how to make good notes and how to search for faster information in one book (indexing). She used her relief time and teaches the students during that time. All LMT agreed that they need to keep updated themselves with current information, know how to search information accurately either printed or non-printed material in order for them to give proper guidance to the students for their academic purposes. D. Technology As explained by LMT2, their students are allowed or encourage having Ipad since their school support Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Each student must have Apple ID account so that they can register on their Ipad because some teachers will give homework through VLE or they can retrieve e-books on the site. She added students have to search for information to complete their coursework by referring to their SRC website. All the LMT agreed that VLE helps students to complete the History and Geography coursework and they have to make sure personal computer (PC) have Internet connections or Wi-Fi. LMT3 explained that they have 10 PC in SRC and all PC have an Internet connection because students use it to find the information. LMT4 supported that, it is their responsibility to make sure all PC have the Internet access to make sure students can easily search the information. All school have a library management system called PUSTAKA and S-LIB. Four out of five school uses S-LIB meanwhile one school are using PUSTAKA. These systems help SRC to organized and easily track the location of the library materials. In the same times, it helps LMT to search or suggest the relevant resources to their students. All the school have Visual Aid Room complete with CD, VCD together with the player. LMT needs to make sure the player in the good condition so that students can search for information on the CD or VCD. Three out of five schools provide binding, photocopy and scanner service so that students can use it to prepare for their coursework. The usage of a scanner or photocopy machine is to help students to get the information from the collections that cannot be brought out from the SRC. It helps them to get high marks for their coursework. For certain schools, they required students to print out the coursework. Therefore, LMT needs to make sure their SRC complete with the printing services. After completing the coursework, they need to compile and bind the coursework nicely. It will help students to submit the coursework on time. LMT4 explained another technology that helps students to accomplish their coursework is OPAC whereby they have 10 OPAC station in school area which is in Headmaster’s office, server room, office, hostel, Form 6 teacher’s office, Special education teacher’s office, head of committees’ room, teachers’ room, counselling room and Assistant Principal’s room. All information about their SRC will be announced through Room War which has three sections which are in the canteen, school office and teachers' room. This innovation started in 2013. E. Environment From the interviewed sessions, it found that the environment is SRC plays an important role to accelerate students' motivation to stay longer in SRC to study. This is the new emerging finding. The five LMT claim environment as one of the variable affect student performance and motivation. LMT1 mentioned that "we not only have a reading area, we also have ‘public speech' area where this area will full with students after school". LMT2 stated that they supposed to close at 4pm however, students request to stay in SRC until 5pm or 6pm because students feel very comfortable studying in SRC because they provide comfortable air conditioning. LMT3 explained one of the reason students request to stay in SRC because they provide indoor games such as Sahibba, Chess, novel area so students like to spend their times hereafter they finish doing their homework until the close time which is 5 pm". This is the time whereby they can relax after doing their assignment. LMT4 mentioned that they open the SRC even though it is school break because students request to do revision in the SRC because they will comfortable while doing revision, boost the idea and do their coursework in the SRC. Apart from that, they can find information that they want. Besides that, all the LMT stated that they provide space for students to have a group discussion or standalone study. This space is important in SRC to offer a peaceful environment for those who not involve with the group discussion. F. Student Performance and Motivation All LMTs positively stated that SRC helps students in teaching and learning specially to helps students to achieve high marks for their History and Geography coursework. LMT2 stated that SRC motivates students to search and use materials in SRC to complete their course works. Not only that, but SRC also provides easy access in terms of materials and place. This is the positive impact of the information literacy session conducted by SRC and collaboration with others such as Information Technology teachers, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), collaboration program with universities and others. Students are happy when they come to SRC because they know where to find the information that they need because students participate in the library orientation program. SRC not limited as a reading place but as a place to grow students' holistic through social and communication skills in their public speaking area provide by SRC. Supported by LMT1, students develop communication skills when they gathered with friends while doing assignment and discussion in the SRC. In the same time, they are having knowledge sharing from each other. LMT2 revealed that, as a result, last year result for History and Geography PT3 was increase compare to a few years back. They also won the NILAM program at the national level in the English category. According to LMT3, even though it's quite challenging to promote students to come to SRC but she and her SRC committee have succeeded to do so by giving special appreciation to students who regularly come to SRC. This is one of the motivations for them. Once they know about the SRC services and facilities they often come to SRC. She added, as a result, there was a slight improvement for Geography and History coursework results.

The current study has taken into consideration the perspective of LMT and it aimed to identified how student get better perform and get motivated towards the use of SRC. The current findings give exposure to students of the difference collections that they can refer besides books and the Internet. Based on the findings, LMT agreed that they need to have information skills and also technology competency in order for them to provide proper guidance to the students. This is consistent finding with Novotny (2017) work that concludes the need for real collaboration between teachers and LMT aiming at the development of students' information literacy skills and school educational success. The peaceful area in SRC avoids distraction and students can concentrate for study. The convenience operating hours of SRC and area for study make students comfortable to come for study or search for information. Support from management, administrator, staff, teachers and students will make SRC grow stronger in Malaysia and information that they gain, will help to produce 21st-century skills citizen. It is believed that this study will contribute to the current literature and recommend a new model of SRC in Malaysia. Furthermore, it will be expected to produce knowledge-based society (students) with 21st-century skills that include technology and media literacy, learning and innovation skills, and life and career skills. It will be additional policy and makes recommendations for teachers, LMT, school management and policymaker, Ministry of Education (MoE) to organize activities and training related to students' skill development.