Lived Experiences of Public Junior High School Chemistry Teachers in Integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) amid the Digital Divide
TL;DR
Findings indicated that ICT was experienced as a pedagogical medium that could make abstract, microscopic, and otherwise invisible chemical processes more perceptible to learners and was associated with student engagement, curiosity, participation, and collaboration.
Abstract
This descriptive phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of public junior high school Chemistry teachers integrating information and communication technology (ICT) amid the digital divide. The study was conducted at Las Piñas National High School–Main and focused on how teachers experienced, interpreted, and negotiated technology-supported Chemistry teaching under unequal conditions of connectivity, device access, infrastructure, and learner readiness. Ten chemistry teachers participated in in-depth, semi-structured phenomenological interviews. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi’s descriptive phenomenological method through repeated reading, extraction of significant statements, formulation of meanings, clustering of meanings into themes, exhaustive description, and synthesis of the essential structure of the experience. Findings indicated that ICT was experienced as a pedagogical medium that could make abstract, microscopic, and otherwise invisible chemical processes more perceptible to learners. ICT-supported lessons were also associated with student engagement, curiosity, participation, and collaboration. These possibilities were accompanied by technical interruptions, unstable internet, device and power limitations, unfamiliar applications, uneven learner access, and the need to return to traditional or hands-on approaches. Teachers therefore experienced ICT integration as contingent and negotiated rather than stable or automatic. They prepared alternative materials, sought assistance from colleagues, adjusted lesson delivery, and continued to protect learning objectives when technology failed. The essential structure of the experience was constituted through the interplay of visualization, constraint, emotional labor, professional growth, and adaptive continuity. The study offers implications for context-responsive professional development, infrastructure planning, chemistry pedagogy, and school support systems that align technology expectations with the lived conditions of teachers and learners.