Ubc 2020 November Tembrevilla Gerald

Examining ICT and FoK integration in Rural Public Junior High Schools
with the Philippines’ New K-12 Curriculum: A Case Study
by
Gerald Gallego Tembrevilla
BSE, West Visayas State University, 1998
MA, Okayama University, 2012
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES
(Curriculum Studies)
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)
July 2020
© Gerald Gallego Tembrevilla, 2020

The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate
and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled:
Examining ICT and FoK integration in Rural Public Junior High Schools with the Philippines’
New K-12 Curriculum: A Case Study
submitted by Gerald Gallego Tembrevilla in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in Curriculum Studies
Examining Committee:
Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin

Supervisor
Dr. Samson Nashon

Supervisory Committee Member
Dr. Patricia Duff

Supervisory Committee Member
Dr. Stephen Petrina

University Examiner
Dr. Chih Shen Lo

University Examiner
Dr. Xavier Fazio

External Examiner
ii
Abstract
This is a nested, descriptive, and interpretative case study on the use of information and
communication technology (ICT) in science education in select rural public junior high schools
in the Philippines. Using mixed methods, the study investigated key challenges faced by science
teachers as they integrate ICT in their classes viewed through the lenses of technological,
pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) and funds of knowledge (FoK). In-depth
quantitative and qualitative analyses were drawn on teachers’ online questionnaires, one-on-one
interviews, focus groups, fieldnotes, and observations and reflections on science video-creation
workshops.
Three overarching findings emerged from the data analyses: TPACK as a foundational
professional development enabler; FoK as a bridge to enhance teachers’ TPACK; and the
successful implementations of ICT-centred science curriculum and pedagogy as policy- and
governance-dependent. These findings described the contained experiences of science teachers
as enablers of innovative rural science teaching practices. The study documented how science
teachers overcome functional fixedness of educational technology. This, in turn, allowed them to
identify the affordances and constraints of such technology. In rural schools where the shortage
of educational resources is a perennial problem, prevailing over a state of functional fixedness
related to a technology’s particular function and exploring different and more creative ways to
use such technology was a highly welcome educational technology crossover. Moreover, this
study recorded a positive expansion of science teachers’ TPACK. The expansion was brought
about not only by a change in any of the TPACK’s components but by the use of technology
along with students’ FoK through science video-creation.

iii
This study contributes to our understanding of teaching science with ICT and FoK in rural public
high schools. Moreover, it underscores areas for consideration in developing countries with
similar circumstances such as the Philippines regarding: (a) centering ICT investments on
teachers and teaching; (b) clarifying ICT policies’ terms of implementation, noting that different
definitions lead to different policy investments and recommendations; (c) introducing science
video-creation as a professional development program for teachers in rural public schools; and
(d) recognizing rural public schools and their teachers as places and people of innovation and
alternatives of pedagogical effectiveness.
iv
Lay Summary
This study investigated the key challenges faced by select Filipino rural science teachers as they
used technology in a new K-12 curriculum. Drawn from in-depth analyses of teachers’
questionnaires, interviews, and video-creation workshops, the results indicated that science
teachers struggle with limited educational technology to master science content and pedagogy.
The struggle steered teachers to explore creative ways a technology can function. This study
documented an expansion in science teachers’ knowledge related to technology, pedagogy, and
content through the use of technology and students’ funds of knowledge in science video
creation.
This investigation contributes to our understanding of teaching science with technology and local
knowledge in rural areas. It underscores areas for consideration such as centering investments for
teachers and teaching, and clarifying institutional policies to match teachers’ professional
development needs. It also recognizes public rural schools as places of innovation and
alternatives of pedagogical effectiveness.
v
Preface
This dissertation is original and unpublished work by the author, Gerald G. Tembrevilla. The
research was designed, carried out, and analyzed by Gerald G. Tembrevilla with full support
from Drs. Marina Milner-Bolotin, Samson Nashon, and Patricia Duff.
This research obtained the approval of the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board (BREB)
with UBC BREB Number: H18-02992.
vi
Table of Contents
Abstract......................................................................................................................................... iii
Preface ........................................................................................................................................... vi
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ xi
List of Figures............................................................................................................................. xiii
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................xv
Dedication ................................................................................................................................... xvi
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study ..........................................................................................1
1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Context ............................................................................................................................ 4
1.2.1 DepEd Division of Bago City, Negros Occidental: The Rural Context ................. 6
1.2.2 Public Junior High School Science Teachers in the Division of Bago City ........... 9
1.3 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................ 10
1.4 Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 12
1.5 Significance of the Study .............................................................................................. 13
1.6 Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 14
Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Framework....................................................16
2.1 Emerging Policies on the Use of ICT in Education ...................................................... 16
2.2 Use of ICT from SITES’ Surveys: International Perspectives ..................................... 18
2.3 Issues in the Use of ICT in Education .......................................................................... 22
2.4 ICT in Education: The Case of the Philippines ............................................................ 24

vii
2.5 Department of Information and Communications Technology .................................... 28
2.6 DepEd New K-12 Curriculum ...................................................................................... 30
2.7 TPACK and FoK as Complementary Frameworks ...................................................... 31
Chapter 3: Methodology..............................................................................................................37
3.1 The Study ...................................................................................................................... 37
3.2 Descriptive Case Study ................................................................................................. 38
3.3 Case Study as a Research Design ................................................................................. 41
3.3.1 Research Questions ............................................................................................... 42
3.3.2 Study Propositions ................................................................................................ 42
3.3.3 The Unit of Analysis and Case Selection ............................................................. 43
3.3.4 Data Collection Procedures................................................................................... 47
3.3.4.1 Quantitative Methods ........................................................................................ 48
Development and Deployment of the Questionnaire ........................................................ 48
3.3.4.2 Qualitative Methods: Interviews, Workshops, and Notes ................................ 57
3.3.5 Data Analysis Techniques..................................................................................... 63
3.3.5.1 Quantitative Data Analysis: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)..................... 63
3.3.5.2 Qualitative Data Analysis: Thematic Analysis ................................................. 67
3.4 Triangulation: Merging Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis.................................... 71
3.5 Ethical Considerations in Research Design .................................................................. 71
3.5.1 Recruitment ........................................................................................................... 72
3.5.2 The Impacts of Researcher’s Identities ................................................................. 73
3.5.3 Data Collection Timeline ...................................................................................... 75
3.6 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 75

viii
Chapter 4: Quantitative Data Analyses .....................................................................................77
4.1 Quantitative Data Analysis: The Questionnaire ........................................................... 77
4.1.1 Descriptive Statistics............................................................................................. 80
4.1.1.1 Distribution of Science Teachers ...................................................................... 80
4.1.1.2 Subjects Taught and Number of Years ............................................................. 82
4.1.1.3 Science Teachers’ Preparation .......................................................................... 83
4.1.1.4 Internet Accessibility and Laptop Use .............................................................. 84
4.1.1.5 Use of Funds of Knowledge (FoK) in Science ................................................. 88
4.1.1.6 Teachers’ Views of Technology ....................................................................... 90
4.1.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): Emergent Themes ....................................... 91
4.1.2.1 Tests for Data Suitability: KMO and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity .................. 92
4.1.2.2 Multiple Methods to Extract the Number of Factors ........................................ 93
4.1.3 Summarizing EFA: Determining the Final Number of Factors .......................... 100
4.1.4 Conceptualizing the Three Emergent Themes .................................................... 105
Chapter 5: Qualitative Data Analyses......................................................................................111
5.1.1 Thematic Analysis: Emergent Themes ............................................................... 111
5.1.2 Conceptual Interpretations: Emerging Themes .................................................. 117
5.1.3 Science Movie Creation Workshops ................................................................... 139
5.1.3.1 Analyses and Reflections ................................................................................ 141
Chapter 6: Results and Discussions .........................................................................................152
6.1 Results: Overarching Themes ..................................................................................... 154
6.1.1 Theme 1: TPACK as a Foundational Professional Development Enabler of ICT-
centered Curricular Implementation and a K-12 Enabler ................................................... 154

ix
6.1.2 Theme 2: FoK as a Bridge to Enhance Teachers’ TPACK and ICT-centered
Science Pedagogy ............................................................................................................... 161
6.1.3 Theme 3: Successful Implementation of ICT-centered Science Curriculum and
Pedagogy as Policy and Governance Dependent. ............................................................... 166
6.2 Limitations of the Study.............................................................................................. 171
Chapter 7: Conclusions and Implications ...............................................................................173
7.1 Answer to Research Question 1 .................................................................................. 173
7.4 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 184
7.5 Research Implications ................................................................................................. 188
References ...................................................................................................................................194
Appendix A : Full Survey Questionnaire................................................................................ 226
Appendix B : Interview and Focus Group Questions ............................................................. 231
Appendix C : Science Video-Creation Workshop .................................................................. 232
Appendix D : UBC Behavioural Ethics Approval .................................................................. 233
Appendix E : External Approvals: Division and Region VI................................................... 233
Appendix F : Invitation Letter ................................................................................................ 234
Appendix G : Consent Letter .................................................................................................. 235
Appendix H : Observation Protocol Matrix ............................................................................ 237
x
List of Tables
Table 1: Key Players and ICT Initiatives in Education in the Philippines ................................... 26
Table 2: Sample Items from the Questionnaire ............................................................................ 50
Table 3: Questionnaire’s Internal Reliability ................................................................................ 55
Table 4: Questionnaire's Interrater Reliability .............................................................................. 57
Table 5: Sample Interview Questions ........................................................................................... 59
Table 6: Sample Focus Group Questions...................................................................................... 60
Table 7: Schedules: Interviews, Focus Groups, & Workshops .................................................... 61
Table 8: Research Questions and Summary of Methods Used ..................................................... 76
Table 9: 21 Likert-type Items from the Questionnaire ................................................................. 78
Table 10: 15 Open-ended and Multiple Choice Items from the Questionnaire ............................ 80
Table 11: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartlett’s Test ....................................................................... 93
Table 12: Eigenvalues Extracted Using Maximum Likelihood .................................................... 95
Table 13: Eigenvalues Extracted Using Principal Axis Factoring................................................ 96
Table 14: Factor extraction using Velicer’s Minimum Average Partial Test ............................... 99
Table 15: Factor Extraction Using Horn’s Parallel Analysis...................................................... 100
Table 16: Summary of Extraction Methods to Determine the Number of Factors to Retain ..... 101
Table 17: Pattern Matrices for 1-3 (a-b) Factor Constructs ........................................................ 103
Table 18: Pattern Matrices for 4-5 (c-d) Factor Constructs ........................................................ 104
Table 19: Factor Loadings for a Three-factor Construct ............................................................ 105
Table 20: Retained Three-factor Construct and its Conceptual Description .............................. 108
Table 21: Examples of Teacher Difficulties and Their Enabling Actions .................................. 121
xi
Table 22: Summary of Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses .................................................. 153
xii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Maps of the Philippines showing the 17 regions (adapted from Bravo et al., 2014) ...... 5
Figure 2: Map of Region VI and Bago City (adapted from Google Maps, 2019) .......................... 6
Figure 3: Number of Years in Teaching ....................................................................................... 10
Figure 4: Bachelor's Degree Holders & Figure 5: Master's Degree Holders ................................ 10
Figure 6: TPACK Framework (Reproduced by permission of the publisher © 2012 by tpack.org,
2009) ............................................................................................................................................. 33
Figure 7: Locations of Teacher-Participants in Region VI (adapted from Google Maps, 2019) . 81
Figure 8: Distribution of Teacher-Participants in Region VI ....................................................... 82
Figure 9: Subjects Taught and Years of Teaching Experience ..................................................... 83
Figure 10: Bachelor’s (A) and Master’s (B) Degrees Holders ..................................................... 84
Figure 11: Internet Access for Science Class ............................................................................... 85
Figure 12: Laptop Ownership ....................................................................................................... 86
Figure 13: Laptop Use in Science Class ....................................................................................... 86
Figure 14: Difficulties When Using a Laptop............................................................................... 87
Figure 15: Suggested ICT Training .............................................................................................. 88
Figure 16: Funds of Knowledge Used in Science ......................................................................... 89
Figure 17: Reluctance in Using Funds of Knowledge Used in Science ....................................... 90
Figure 18: Teachers’ Views of Technology.................................................................................. 91
Figure 19: Scree Plot for Six Eigenvalues > 1 .............................................................................. 97
Figure 20: Scree Plot of Combined Extracted Methods ............................................................. 102
Figure 21: Factor Loadings with Corresponding conceptualization of Themes and Items ........ 106
xiii
Figure 22: 20 Generated Themes from Open Coding Step......................................................... 112
Figure 23: Emergent Themes after Axial and Selective Coding ................................................ 113
Figure 24: Visualizing using NVivo Coding Strips .................................................................... 114
Figure 25: Visualizing using NVivo Diagram ............................................................................ 115
Figure 26: Visualizing the Four Emergent Themes and their Child Themes ............................. 116
Figure 27: Visualizing using NVivo’s Detailed Listing and Hierarchical View ........................ 119
Figure 28: Theme 2: Funds of Knowledge ................................................................................. 124
Figure 29: Theme 2 “Funds of Knowledge as a Common Topic” ............................................. 125
Figure 30: Theme 3 “Policy and Governance” ........................................................................... 129
Figure 31: Theme 4 “Affordances of Available Technology”.................................................... 133
Figure 32: Science Teacher-Participants’ Level of ICT Adoption ............................................. 137
Figure 33: Ms. I.’s TPACK and FoK During Pre-production to Production.............................. 142
Figure 34: Ms. I.’s TPACK and FoK During Post-production ................................................... 147
xiv
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my enduring and heartfelt appreciation to my supervisors Drs. Marina
Milner-Bolotin and Samson Nashon together with Dr. Patricia Duff as a member of my
committee. Thank you very much for a remarkable mentorship, guidance, and support. I will be
eternally grateful to all of you.
This research would not have been possible without my research funders and collaborators:
UBC Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies Public Scholars Initiative
UBC International Tuition Award
UBC Faculty of Education Graduate Scholarship
UBC Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy Graduate Student Research Travel Award
UBC Mitacs-Canada Globalink Research Award
UBC Go Global Scholarship
UBC CTLT and the Institute for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
UBC Philippine Studies Series
UBC Joseph Katz Memorial Scholarship Endowed Award
Staff, Science Teachers, Department Heads, Principals, and Superintendents at the Department
of Education, Division of Bago City, Negros Occidental & Region VI Office, Philippines
Prof. Kimberly Gomez, UCLA Department of Education and Information Studies
Prof. Dr. Andreas Vaterlaus, Dr. Guillaume Schiltz, and ETH Zurich Solid State Physics and
Physics Education Group
Prof. Keith S Taber, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education, Science Education Centre
xv
Dedication
I dedicate this dissertation to my family, dear parents and siblings in the Philippines, friends,
mentors, and former students in the Philippines, Japan, U.S.A, Switzerland, U.K., and Canada.
Thank you very much for the motivation, inspiration, love, and care.
xvi
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study
1.1 Introduction
The year 2008 was a monumental year for those who study demography, economics, education,
etc. In this year, for the first time in the history of humankind, the number of rural settlers was
overtaken by the number of urban dwellers (UN, 2018). Urbanization and migration have
provided momentum for the increase in the global urban population, while the global rural
population is projected to plateau in the next two decades (UN, 2018). Long before that historic
event of 2008, the rural population had been cast aside as a “forgotten minority” in public and
educational discourses. They were stereotyped as uneducated, marginalized, and inefficient
(Shafft & Youngblood Jackson, 2010; Azano, 2015; Reagan et al., 2019). However, heightened
economic, political, and cultural globalization (Drainville, 2004)—including increasing calls for
equity, diversity, and inclusion across levels of education in recent years—has afforded a
renewed interest in rural communities for research, policy, and practice. The proliferation of
mass media, communication and information technology (ICT), and educational reforms as
countries confront 21st century digital education and globalization are reshaping rural education
with new opportunities and challenges.
Several international organizations (World Bank, 2017; OECD, 2018, 2019) are highlighting the
vital role of teachers in globalization. Global competition, as seen in every country’s policies,
relies heavily on the use of ICT (Lubin, 2018). The desire to be economically competitive
represents a persuasive argument for a country to justify huge investments in “educational
improvement and the applications of ICT in schools” (Kozma, 2005, p. 118).
1
While Trucano (2016) highlights that the “potential and promise of ICT use in education is clear
in many regards” (p. v), he also acknowledges that there are risks like “disruption of existing
traditional teaching and learning practices, high costs, [and] increased burdens on teachers…” (p.
v). In addition, Trucano (2016) noted that, in country-wide ICT initiatives in the case of
developing countries, “support for teachers is often deemphasized in the early stages of ICT
rollouts” (p. 4). Although teachers are highly regarded as the “cornerstone of educational
development and…‘good schools require good teachers’” (Cheng et al., 2004, p. ix), there are
growing concerns regarding teachers’ situations in developing countries. They have poor
working conditions, low salaries, and inadequate training and access to quality professional
development (PD) (UNESCO 2003; World Bank 2005, 2017; LeTendre & Wiseman, 2015). As
developing countries are extensively expanding the roll-outs of ICT initiatives in education, there
is a critical need for research-based data on teachers’ actual situations, such as their use of ICT in
teaching and learning, the difficulties encountered by the teachers while using ICT, etc. These
data are crucial to ascertain teachers’ PD needs and match institutional policies with the
implementation of initiatives in education and ultimately the delivery of quality education to the
learners.
The Philippines, with a population of more than 108 million—nearly three times bigger than
Canada (Population, 2019)—is one of the developing nations rolling-out large-scale ICT
initiatives in education (Trucano & Dykes, 2017; DepEd, 2019). However, Vergel de Dios
(2016) asserts that even if the Philippine government calls for quality education through ICT, the
government did not have a mandated national ICT agency until 2016. Prior to 2016, there were
several loosely organized agencies, commissions, and stakeholders implementing different
2
initiatives. There were also quasi-governmental institutions that evolved with constant changes in
government leadership. Such changes not only affect the structure of the system but also its
functions and funding. With numerous stakeholders and agencies involved, the coordination and
management of the implementation of ICT initiatives were a big challenge. The overlapping and
competing functions among agencies and stakeholders stemmed from the absence of a clear
national vision and strong ICT leadership agency between 1996-2016 (Loxley & Julien, 2005;
Lapus, 2006; Vergel de Dios, 2016). Due to the absence of a national benchmark in the
Philippines to gauge the needs and level of competency of students and teachers in ICT,
stakeholders’ initiatives did not effectively address the actual needs of teachers and schools
(Loxley & Julien, 2005; Hanna & Knight, 2011; Vergel de Dios, 2016). On May 23, 2016, the
Department of Information and Communications Technology was officially approved as the sole
department in the Philippines to “formulate, recommend, and implement national policies, plans,
programs and guidelines that will promote the development and use of ICT” (RA, 2016, p. 4). It
was a promulgation to finally merge all government ICT functions and initiatives into a single
department. For the education sector, the Department of Information and Communications
Technology was mandated to “formulate policies and initiatives in coordination with the
Department of Education (DepEd) (for pre-school, elementary, and secondary schools) to
develop and promote ICT in education consistent with the national goals and objectives…” (p.
5). While the current DepEd leadership is actively implementing several initiatives to improve
quality education through ICT (Montemayor, 2018, 2019), there were no national benchmarks of
teachers’ ICT competencies that (a) align with teachers’ competencies as described in the newly
implemented K-12 curriculum (Parrocha, 2018) and (b) match with the ICT skills needed for
teachers to implement ICT initiatives being rolled out in the classroom (Arayata, 2017).
3
1.2 Context
The Philippine education system is run by three independent levels of governance: DepEd, the
Commission on Higher Education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development
Authority (DepEd, 2019). DepEd oversees both public and private pre-school, elementary, and
junior and senior high school education. It focuses on two overarching programs, namely the
new K-12 curriculum and the expansion of ICT-based integrations across the curriculum. The
combination of limited technical infrastructure, logistics, and the size of DepEd represents major
challenges in advancing ICT in schools across the country.
For the academic school year (2019–2020), DepEd has 700, 000 teachers in 47, 000 public
schools serving 21 million students (Arayata, 2017; Montemayor, 2019b), which represents
almost 20% of the total population of the country (PSA, 2019a). Public schools are grouped into
school divisions. A school division could cover all of the schools either in one city or in the
entire province. A number of school divisions form a region. There are 17 regions (Figure 1)
across the country. DepEd Region VI, Western Visayas, is located in the central part of the
Philippines.
4
Figure 1: Maps of the Philippines showing the 17 regions (adapted from Bravo et al., 2014)
The Division of Bago City, circled below (Figure 2), is one of 20 school divisions under Region
VI, Western Visayas. In this region, there are provinces which have only one school division.
These are the provinces of Aklan, Antique, and Guimaras. Iloilo, the capital province of the
region, has three school divisions while Capiz province has two. Negros Occidental province has
5
12 school divisions including Bago City. Each school is managed by its principal, while the
school division is supervised by the school division superintendent. All superintendents report to
the regional director, and all 17 regional directors are headed by the secretary of DepEd at the
national level, who in turn serves under the Office of the President.
Figure 2: Map of Region VI and Bago City (adapted from Google Maps, 2019)
1.2.1 DepEd Division of Bago City, Negros Occidental: The Rural Context
The office of the school division superintendent of Bago City is situated in the city center along
with city government offices. It is located 21 km south of Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, the
province’s capital city. Bago City is a 2nd class city, a classification based on the city’s average
6
annual income. A 2nd class city has an annual income between $8 million–$10 million
(Department Order, 2008).
Bago City has 24 barangays. Barangay (PSA, 2019b; Field study, 2019) is the smallest local
government units attached to municipalities and cities. Barangay can be either urban and rural.
The Philippine government’s classification of rural and urban is done at the barangay level.
According to the official definition (PSA, 2019), a barangay is classified as urban if it meets any
of the following criteria:
1.) It has a population size of 5,000 or more;
2.) It has at least one establishment with a minimum of 100 employees;
3.) It has five or more establishments with 10-99 employees, and five or more facilities
within the two-kilometer radius from the barangay hall.
The facilities considered in the classification include: town/city hall or province capitol,
church, chapel or mosque with religious service at least a month; public plaza, park or
cemetery, market place or building where trading activities are carried out at least once a
week, public building like school (elementary, high school, and college), hospital or health
center, or library, landline telephone system or calling station or cellular phone signal, postal
service or public fire-protection service, community waterworks system or public-street
sweeper, seaport in operation.
A barangay which does not satisfy any of the criteria above is classified as rural.
7
The definition of “urban” has been modified since the 2000 population census as a result of rapid
urbanization and while bigger cities are classified as “highly urbanized” a significant number of
their populations still live in rural barangays (PSA, 2019a, Boquet, 2017).
Based on the definitions above, eight barangays in Bago City are considered urban and the
remaining 16 barangays as rural. The majority of the public junior high schools that were chosen
as research sites for this study are located in these 16 rural barangays (Field study, 2019).
The Division of Bago City has nine public secondary schools spread around the city. Seven
secondary schools include both junior and senior high schools while two schools offer junior
high school only. During my high school years, my school, was called the main high school (the
biggest school in terms of student population up to the latest 2019-2020 school year) and the rest
were extension high schools. Now, all schools are completely independent from the main high
school. Many of these schools are surrounded by housing communities and hectares of
sugarcane, rice, and corn fields with tributaries connected to Bago River. All schools are
accessible via tricycle or motorcycle, which are the common means of transportation in the city
for teachers and students commuting daily. For some teachers and students, reaching the schools
involves riding a bus or jeepney along major provincial and city roads to reach loose terminals to
access these tricycles. Tricycles leave the terminals not according to an agreed time schedule but
rather based on the number of passengers they have. During the rainy season, some river
tributaries swell and access to some schools becomes limited and risky, so most of the time
classes are suspended during this period.
For the 2019–2020 academic year, the school division has 59 junior high school science teachers
whose teaching experience ranges from one to 37 years (Field study, 2019). Under the new K-12
8
curriculum (SEAMEO, 2012), junior high school science teachers should teach one or more core
science subject outside their expertise. For example, a science teacher who specializes in physics
would also teach one or two additional subjects like general science, biology, or chemistry.
The main high school is the biggest high school in terms of its population, the best performing
school, and the closest to the city centre at 1.5 km. As mentioned above, it is also my former
alma mater. Four of the nine current high school principals in the division once taught at this
school, while some of my former science teachers are still teaching but will be retiring in 3–5
years. The junior high school situated farthest from the city center is located 27 km away from
the school division office. Except for the main high school and two other schools closer to the
city centre, there is little to no Internet signal available in the rest of the schools or their nearby
communities (Field study, 2019).
1.2.2 Public Junior High School Science Teachers in the Division of Bago City
Out of 45 junior high school science teachers in nine high schools, 39 participated in this study
and the majority of them taught in schools in a barangay classified as rural. In terms of the
number of science teachers at each school, the main high school has the most at 27, followed by
another school at eight. The rest of the schools have between two and five science teachers.
Nearly 50% of the teachers who joined this study are in their 1st–5th year of teaching (Figure 3).
The majority of the science teachers were graduates of teacher education (Figure 4) and master’s
degree holders (Figure 5) (Field study, 2019).
9
Number of Years in Teaching
20 19
18
16
No. of Teachers
14
12
10 8
8 6 6
6
4
2
0
1-5 years 6-10 years 11-20 years 21 year and
No. of Years above
Figure 3: Number of Years in Teaching
Master's Degree Holders

Bachelor's Degree Holders
30 28
35 31
30 25
No. of Teachers
No. of Teachers
25 20
20
15
15 11
10 8 10
5 5
0
In Education Outside Education 0
Master's Holder Units in MA
Degree holders
Degree holders
Figure 4: Bachelor's Degree Holders Figure 5: Master's Degree Holders
1.3 Problem Statement
While we aim to create a new society, we must not forget we are doing it with an old
society.
James Yen, Founder, International Institute of Rural Reconstruction
(Flavier, 1970, p. 16)

10
Quoting James Yen on the pitfalls of organizations working to transform a society, Flavier
(1970) endeavors to consciously understand farmers’ way of life before attempting to introduce
any reforms that will affect them. Similarly, if the government tries to gain insight into the
quality of education teachers deliver to learners, it is important for the government to consider
the actual conditions under which teachers work.
In May 2016, the Department of Information and Communications Technology was created and
mandated to plan, coordinate, and administer all ICT policies in the Philippines (RA, 2016, p. 4).
In December 2017, DepEd announced that eliminating the technological barriers related to ICT
could be a key step toward boosting the quality of education in the country (Santisteban, 2017).
In the same year, Abanil, the incoming DepEd ICT director, confirmed that DepEd would boost
ICT in public schools in 2018. However, the concern is that they were still in the process of
compiling teachers’ profiles related to ICT competencies and matching them with appropriate
training (Arayata, 2017). In 2018, DepEd announced its ICT Infrastructure Roadmap from 2018
to 2022. The roadmap included distribution of ICT packages (laptops, projectors, tablets, and
digital classrooms), Internet connection, and incubation hubs (research and development centers)
across primary and secondary level public schools, starting with pilot schools in selected regions
in 2018–2019 (DepEd, 2019).
As DepEd’s ICT initiatives are expanding throughout the country, there is a greater urgency to
consolidate national benchmarks to gauge teachers’ needs and levels of IT competency under the
new K-12 curriculum. Moreover, under the new K-12 science curriculum, junior high school
teachers are required to teach other core science subjects (earth and general science, biology,
chemistry, and physics) outside their subject of specialization. The demands of using ICT across
11
the science curriculum on top of the pressure to master content and pedagogical approaches of
one or more core science subjects add to the taxing job of being a junior high school science
teacher. Furthermore, DepEd faces immense challenges due to its geographical spread, limited
infrastructure and funding, logistics, and size, resulting in the inequality of services delivered
among urban and rural schools (Montemayor, 2019). Thus, the examination of the challenges as
well as the practices of rural and remote public junior high school science teachers in their use of
ICT may be critical to inform (a) ICT policies vis-à-vis science education curriculum in
particular and (b) ICT policies and initiatives that match with the new K-12 curriculum in
general.
1.4 Research Questions
This study was guided by the following research questions:
1) What are the experiences, including key challenges encountered by rural junior
high school science teachers, during integration of ICT in their science teaching
within Philippines’s public high schools?
2) In what ways are these experiences related to (a) curriculum and pedagogy and
(b) PD?; and
3) How are the experiences, especially the key challenges, (a) transformed into
enablers of dissemination of good practices and (b) informed both institutional
and government-level policy frameworks?
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1.5 Significance of the Study
To “tech” or not to “tech” education is not the question. The real question is how to
harvest the power of technology to meet the challenges of the 21st century and make
education relevant, responsive, and effective for anyone, anywhere, anytime.
(Haddad & Draxler, 2002, p. 16)
ICT widens global communities’ access to education, but the capacity of an implementing
country in the adaption and adoption of ICT in education through its teachers draws further
attention to issues of “quality, equality, and equity in education” (Lubin, 2018, p. 3). Due to
limited empirical evidence showing improved educational outcomes based on technology
(Lubin, 2018; Behar &Mishra, 2018), there is a pressing need to gather more research-based
evidence to assess and inform ICT policy and resources for teachers to improve educational
outcomes (Behar & Mishra, 2018).
This study aimed to provide empirical data related to the current challenges faced by and
enabling practices of select science teachers in rural areas as they use ICT. What are the actual
needs of science teachers in rural public schools as they use ICT in their respective science
classes? Prior to ICT deployment in schools, if any, were teachers given opportunities in
accordance with their preparedness to learn how to use ICT appropriately to support learners?
Could these challenges and practices facilitate the dissemination of innovation and effective use
of ICT in teaching for science teachers not only in rural areas but also in urban areas in the
country and other developing countries with similar circumstances? By closely examining such
challenges, this study might identify research-based findings that could serve as guidelines
regarding the opportunities and challenges related to the use of ICT not only in science but also
13
in technology, engineering, and mathematics. Such guidelines might relate to curriculum and
pedagogy, teacher training programs, and continuing professional development of teachers at an
institutional level. At the level of government policy, education administrators in the Philippines
and other developing countries with similar circumstances could also use the findings of this
study to inform their own interventions, support and framework development or improvement,
and project implementation and evaluation.
1.6 Organization of the Thesis
This dissertation is organized into seven chapters. Chapter 1 (this chapter) offers an introduction
to the study and describes the context, problem statement, research questions, and overall
significance of the study. Chapter 2 follows with a review of literature on the emerging policies,
surveys, and issues related to the use of ICT in education from an international perspective found
in Sections 2.1– 2.3. The Philippine perspective on the use of ICT in education and its present
challenges as well as an overview of the Department of Information and Communications
Technology and DepEd’s new K-12 curriculum are discussed in Sections 2.4–2.6. The
technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) and funds of knowledge (FoK)
frameworks are discussed in Section 2.7. Chapter 3 outlines the methodology for this study. It
introduces case study as the methodology used, and discusses the five major elements of
descriptive case study, which include the nature and context of the participants, the methods used
to collect and analyze the data in order to answer the research questions, and the ethical
considerations and limitations. Chapter 4 details the quantitative data analyses, then Chapter 5
deals with the qualitative data analyses. Chapter 6 outlines the results and offers discussion.
14
Chapter 7 culminates by discussing the answers to the study’s three research questions and
presenting conclusions and research implications.
15
Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Framework
In this chapter, I outline the overview of emerging policies across organizations and governments
on the use of ICT in education from international and Philippine perspectives. I then introduce
the frameworks and context of challenges used in this study.
2.1 Emerging Policies on the Use of ICT in Education
The Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication defines ICT as an umbrella term for
several media used in communicating information (Butterfield & Ngondi, 2016). In an
educational context, according to this definition, ICT may cover computers, the Internet,
television broadcasts, and even printed or handwritten notes. OECD (2018) categorized ICT as
having three components: the information technology equipment, which includes computers and
related hardware, the communications equipment, and software. A Google search (2019, Sept. 9)
for the acronym ICT yielded 242 million entries and counting. These entries discussed the
meaning, examples, impacts, and applications of ICT in industries, economies of the world,
education, entertainment, etc.
Several international organizations (European Commission, 1995; World Bank, 1998; OECD,
1999) have published policy documents to address the profound and emerging impacts of ICT in
education. For example, twenty-five years ago the European Commission (1995) underscored the
importance of education and training to European society in the context of technological and
economic change. In the face of technological advancement, the commission considered
“guidelines for action in the pursuit of objectives to build up high-quality education and training”
(p. 4). At the start of the 21st century, more policy documents were introduced and updated
(UNESCO, 2008, 2018; World Bank, 2005, 2017; Wagner et.al, 2005; OECD, 2016, 2012, 2018)
16
to meet and inform the rising demands and challenges in education brought about by ICT. The
World Bank (2017) outlined examples of how technology, particularly digital technology is
“changing the world of work” (p. 164). The accelerated power of computing machines, the
Internet, and artificial intelligence affects the nature of work in different ways. Such acceleration
of machines’ power challenges world economies to prepare the workforce with critical thinking,
socioemotional, and technological skills. By exploring the fast-paced rise of technology among
member-nations, OECD (2018) aims to ensure “coherence in policy design
and…implementation processes” (p. 26). The exploration to leverage technology for teaching
and learning across OECD member and non-member countries is extremely relevant with the
current Covid-19 pandemic. One of the greatest challenges is on how governments, school
administrators, principals, and more importantly, the teachers can maximize modern learning
technologies to support teaching and learning while schools are shut down. As the Director of
Education and Skills at OECD recently suggested that “in this crisis, all teachers need to be
involved, and technology allows the closing of some training gaps even during school closures”
(Schleicher, 2020, para. 9).
Governments across the globe have created masterplans and national benchmarks (e.g.,
Singapore First Masterplan, 1997; UK-BECTA, 1998; Korea-KERIS, 1999; Australia, 2000;
Canada, 2002; Hong Kong, 2004; U.S. Department of Education, 2010) in education to include
the use of ICT in teaching and learning. Singapore’s First Masterplan (1997) for ICT in
education was formulated to prepare students for jobs that might be created as computers
influenced the work and lifestyle of Singaporeans at the start of the 21st century. The British
Educational Communications and Technology Agency (1998) was established with the goal of
17
“ensuring that young people leave school and college with the ICT skills that they will need for
the 21st century” (Gavin, 2017, p. 1). Korea created the Korea Education and Research
Information Service (1999) in anticipation of the fundamental transformation of the traditional
educational system due to the widespread presence of ICT (Youngsun Kwon, 2017). Realizing
the importance of using ICT in teaching and learning, in 2002 the Conference Board of Canada
designed an analytical framework to gauge Canadian schools’ connectivity and ICT integration
(Plante & Beattie, 2004). The U.S., with its National Education Technology Plan (2010),
acknowledged that technology permeates virtually all aspects of American lives. The challenge
for the American educational system is to “leverage the learning sciences and modern
technology to create engaging, relevant, and personalized learning experiences for all learners
that mirror students’ daily lives and the reality of their futures” (p. x).
2.2 Use of ICT from SITES’ Surveys: International Perspectives
Several international surveys were conducted to create comparative databases among countries
and educational systems about the use of ICT in education. In 1997, the International Association
for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) began an international survey called
Second Information Technology in Education Study Module 1 (SITES-M1) (Pelgrum, 2001;
IEA, 2006; Law, Pelgrum, & Plomp, 2008). The objective of the survey was to gather data to
help countries establish and compare their current use of ICT in education relative to other
countries. The data from the survey served as benchmarks for national policymakers to consider
improvements in the coming years. There were 26 participating countries from Europe, Africa,
and Asia. The participants were school principals and technology coordinators who were asked
to answer questions related to management support for the use of ICT vis-à-vis ICT
18
infrastructure and support services. Two additional versions of this survey were deployed in the
succeeding years. The second module was called Second Information Technology in Education
Study Module 2 (SITES-M2), conducted in 2001. It was a qualitative case study on how the
classrooms of 28 participating countries introduced ICT-based pedagogical approaches (Law et
al., 2008). There were 174 case studies generated from this study (Kozma, 2003). These case
studies offered teachers around the world examples of innovative teaching practices using ICT.
For policymakers, they served as guidelines for how to further maximize the use of technology in
education. The third survey was called Second Information Technology in Education Study 2006
(Law et al., 2008). The data were collected from school principals, technology coordinators, and
teachers in mathematics and science in 22 participating countries. The survey was a combination
of Second Information Technology in Education Study Modules 1–2. Module 1 focused on the
use of ICT, infrastructure, and support services while Module 2 focused on ICT-based
pedagogical practices.
Following the three international surveys in the span of a decade (1997–2006), what changes did
the use of ICT in education bring to teaching and learning in schools around the world?
Based on the results of Second Information Technology in Education Study Module 1, Pelgrum
& Anderson (1999) reported that a number of principals valued ICT in their schools and many
schools had put in place policies regarding its use. These policies included equipment acquisition
and replacement, equity of access, and Internet use. The policy on the training of all teachers in
the use of ICT was achieved in only a minority of participating schools in most countries (IEA,
2006). The student-computer ratio among participating countries ranged from lower ratios (e.g.,
Canada with 9 to 1) to higher ratios (e.g., Cyprus with 210 to 1). In terms of Internet access,
19
Singapore and Iceland had 100% access, Canada 98%, and Finland 96%, while Cyprus had 11%.
The problem most frequently cited by respondents was the limited number of computers,
followed by teachers’ lack of knowledge and skills regarding ICT (Pelgrum & Anderson, 1999;
Law et al., 2006). Second Information Technology in Education Study Module 2 highlighted the
innovative pedagogical practices in classrooms using ICT through a case study approach. From
the 174 cases identified in the study, a substantial number of cases showed that technology was
supporting teaching and learning processes through “constructivist activities” (IEA, 2006; Law et
al., 2006). Teachers were seen advising students (in 90% of cases), creating structures for student
activities (in 80% of cases), and collaborating with other teachers (in 50% of cases), while
students were observed crafting products and mounting or staging the results of their work. The
innovative ICT-based classroom practices or the so-called “constructivist activities” were found
to have limited impact on other classrooms or schools. The continuity of implementation relied
on varying factors like energy and commitment of teachers, availability of professional
development opportunities for teachers, and administrative support. The success of the
implementation of innovative ICT-based practices was reported to rely significantly on the
connection between the national ICT policy and the context of such innovative classroom
practices (Kozma, 2003; IEA, 2006). The third study, Second Information Technology in
Education Study 2006, centered on how ICT was used in science and mathematics (Kozma,
2003; IEA, 2006; Law et al., 2006). Data showed a low percentage of teachers using ICT in
teaching. Science teachers used ICT more frequently than math teachers in most countries.
Result also noted that there was no correlation between the student-computer ratio and the
percentage of teachers who used ICT in teaching. Moreover, it was reported that the presence of
support (e.g., technical, administrative, and infrastructural) was a strong indicator of teachers’
20
use of ICT. Besides school-level context, national curriculum policies also played a role in
teachers’ use of ICT.
What were the changes in investment in ICT in education among countries in the next decade
after Second Information Technology in Education Study 2006? According to the PISA 2015
data as reported by OECD (2016), there were still large differences in the computer-student ratio
across participating countries’ education systems. There was a 1:1 computer-student ratio in
Australia, Austria, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and at
least 95% of the computers had Internet access. However, there was at least a 1:5 computer-
student ratio in Albania, Algeria, Indonesia, Kosovo, and Tunisia, and less than 70% of the
computers had Internet access. Moreover, data showed that among OECD countries, there were
more computers per student available for learning in socioeconomically disadvantaged than in
advantaged schools and more in rural than in urban schools. This was seen as a significant
initiative to increase accessibility and equity of resources to disadvantaged students in rural areas
who have limited access to computers and the Internet at home.
In terms of teachers’ use of ICT, the common issue of teachers having limited support in their
use of ICT still resurfaced in the latest Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)
(OECD, 2018). It showed that only 56% of teachers from OECD member-countries had training
in the use of ICT as part of their teacher education certification, and only 43% of teachers
expressed confidence to teach based on ICT trainings they received; 18% of teachers articulated
a greater need for ICT training for teaching. As for school leaders, 25% of them declared that the
deficiency of ICTs for teaching hindered the delivery of quality instruction.
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2.3 Issues in the Use of ICT in Education
There is a popular idea that more educational resources increase student learning outcomes
(OECD, 2016). However, several research studies (Burtless, 1996; Livingstone, 2012; Nicoletti
& Rabe, 2012; OECD, 2016; World Bank, 2017) have shown that beyond a substantial level of
adequacy, extra educational resources had a negligible effect in positive student learning
outcomes. In a collection of essays by American education and economics professors entitled
Does Money Matter? The Effect of School Resources on Student Achievement and Adult Success,
Burtless (1996) pointed out that school expenditures have a minimal effect on students’
achievement. Contributing authors to this book apparently reached a common conclusion that
“no strong or systematic relationship exists between school expenditures and student
performance” (p. 56). Many years later, in his foreword to a 2016 OECD report, Schleicher
similarly implied that education and policy to improve student performance in schools cannot be
measured only by per capita income among countries but should also include “multiple
dimensions, such as: creating demanding and supportive learning environments; [and] involving
parents and local communities…” (OECD, 2016, p. 3). In addition, PISA 2012 (OECD, 2012)
results showed no significant progress in students’ achievement in reading, mathematics, or
science in member-countries that had spent the most on investments in ICT. These results
suggested that the limited use of computers at school may be better than no use at all; however, it
was observed that when the levels of computer use exceeded the OECD average, computer use
did not translate into significant learning outcomes.
Secondly, intensifying the “availability of instructional materials in schools does not boost
learning if the materials do not bridge teacher-learner engagement” (World Bank, 2017, p. 148).
22
For example, Sabarwal et al. (2014) pointed out that providing more textbooks in Sierra Leone in
2008 did not provide more interaction for students and teachers “because administrators put most
of the books in storage—potentially to hedge against future textbook shortfalls” (as cited by
World Bank, 2017, p. 148). In a study by Barrera-Osorio & Linden (2009), an increase in the
provision of desktop computers to classrooms in Colombia did not impact student learning
outcomes since the computers were not well integrated into the curriculum. Milner-Bolotin
(2016) argued that for investments in technology to have an impact on learning, they have to be
used purposely. Several interventions were not successful in increasing learning outcomes due to
inadequate planning regarding how these resources would be utilized. Ganimian & Murnane
(2016) added that educational infrastructures are vital to learning only when they support and
bridge the teaching and learning process.
Thirdly, ICT has the potential to improve learning depending on the nature of interventions.
Based on a World Bank report (2017), most of the ICT interventions have shown “no impact
or—as with certain hardware interventions—a negative impact on student learning” (p. 146). For
example, a computer-assisted instruction program for secondary school students in India
increased math and language scores (Muralidharan, Singh, & Ganimian, 2016), while One
Laptop Per Child programs in Uruguay (de Melo, Machado, & Miranda, 2014) and Peru (Cristia
et al., 2017) indicated no impact on students’ reading or math ability.
Fourthly, many of the ICT interventions in education “fail or stumble badly before being
implemented” (World Bank, 2017, p. 146). One reason for this failure is a lack of focus on
technologies that are realistically feasible in current and existing systems. For example,
introducing technologies in rural school classrooms might appear more attractive “because of the
23
weak education system…but this system itself (i.e. limited access to electricity or Internet
connection) has the least capacity to support education technology interventions” (World Bank,
2017, p. 147). This example is apparent in the case of public officials in developing countries
who invest highly in educational technology. They may derive “political returns from flashy
technological interventions, independent of their usefulness for better learning” (World Bank,
2017, p. 147). In short, some governments seem inclined to “use ICT investments as political
showcase rather than a genuine educational solution” (Vergel de Dios, 2016).
Finally, as mentioned elsewhere, although ICT use in education has the potential to impact
teaching and learning (Trucano, 2016; World Bank, 2017), it also places an additional burden on
teachers. In cases where developing countries’ policies on ICT in education were created with a
lack of robust empirical evidence and coherence in implementation, “support for teachers is often
deemphasized in the early stages of ICT rollouts” (Trucano, 2016, p. 4). Even with some
innovations in the use of ICT among teachers, the lack of technical and infrastructural support
limits the continuation of implementation of such innovations (Law et al., 2016; Pelgrum, 2019).
2.4 ICT in Education: The Case of the Philippines
The widespread ICT initiative in education in the Philippines started under the DepEd
Computerization Program in 1996 (Lapus, 2006; Vergel de Dios, 2016). The creation of the
program was in line with national policies like the Medium Term Development Plan, Basic
Education Curriculum, Schools First Initiative, and National Action Plan to Achieve Education
for All. The 1996 General Appropriations Act (GAA) established the provisioning of IT
equipment in public secondary schools, from hardware to professional teacher training
(UNESCO, 2003). The government insisted that basic education should be the venue for Filipino
24
students to expand and extend innovation and gain a global perspective through ICT. Such a
perspective should be rooted in the pursuit of nation-building (UNESCO, 2003).
DepEd is the government’s agency responsible for basic education (primary and secondary
levels) throughout the whole country. DepEd’s incorporation of information technology (IT), an
older term for ICT, into the public education system across all levels was also stipulated in the
National Information Technology Council’s (1997) plan called “I.T. Action Agenda for the 21st
century.” It was a government’s plan “to spur our country to global competitiveness through
information technology” (p. 1). Along with this plan, DepEd identified four core areas to
improve from 1996 onwards. These areas were: 1) technology integration in mathematics,
science, and English curricula, 2) monitoring of performance and accountability, 3) proper
funding appropriation, and 4) P.D. programs (Hanna & Knight, 2011).
From 1996 to 2012, besides DepEd, government agencies, international and non-government
organizations, the private sector, and local government units had been implementing various
educational ICT initiatives (Vergel de Dios, 2016). Below are listed the key players and key ICT
initiatives in education in the Philippines during this period (Table 1):
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Stakeholders ICT Initiatives and Involvement
Department of Education (DepEd) Implemented the biggest ICT education initiative in
public primary and secondary schools.
Department of Trade and Industry Donated computers to public secondary schools to

promote computer-literacy.
Commission on Information and Communications Implemented “i-Schools” and “e-Skwela” as ICT-

Technology based non-formal education projects.
Department of Science and Technology Piloted the use of tablet computers in select public
schools.
State Universities and Colleges Preferred partners for large-scale ICT education
initiatives.
Foundation for Information Technology Education and Assisted the promotion of Information Technology
Development awareness in the Philippines.
Gearing-up Internet Literacy and Access to Students A consortium of corporations, non-profit organizations,
and government agencies which provided Internet
access to public secondary schools and training of
teachers and principals.
Intel and Microsoft Trained 200,000 to 300,000 teachers in the Philippines

between 2003-2012 on the use of technology
Australian Aid, United States of America Aid, Japan Bilateral donors and international organizations which
International Cooperation Agency funded a number of ICT initiatives in DepEd.
Knowledge Channel Foundation A Non-Government Organization that runs the first and
only educational cable channel.
Procter & Gamble Donated one million computers to public schools as

part of its corporate social responsibility initiative.
South East Asian Ministers of Education Organization- Known for its Text2Teach (multi-media based teaching
Regional Center for Educational Innovations and resources done through text messages and broadcasted
Technology to TVs in the classroom and e-learning module for
school administrators
Table 1: Key Players and ICT Initiatives in Education in the Philippines
The coordination and management of the implementation of large-scale ICT initiatives among
several key players mentioned above presented a big challenge. The major roadblock was the
26
absence of a clear national vision and a strong ICT leadership agency between 1996 and 2016,
which resulted in several issues (Loxley & Julien, 2005; Lapus, 2006; Vergel de Dios, 2016).
First, there was no alignment of projects. As reported by Vergel de Dios (2016), for instance, the
Commission on Information and Communications Technology introduced open source software
in public secondary schools while DepEd provided proprietary software. Second, due to the
absence of a national benchmark to gauge the needs and level of competency of students and
teachers related to ICT, stakeholders’ initiatives did not effectively address the actual needs of
schools (Loxley & Julien, 2005; Hanna & Knight, 2011; Vergel de Dios, 2016). Third, there
were no project inventory initiatives undertaken to assess and update the status of projects. This
created confusion among stakeholders, government agencies, and schools. For example, many
schools had stopped receiving Internet service when DepEd recognized that the donor’s Internet
subscription was only given to schools for a year and the fees for the succeeding years would be
shouldered by DepEd. In addition, there were ICT-based projects that were not scaled up despite
receiving recognition from international organizations for being successful and innovative
(Vergel de Dios, 2016). Other initiatives resulted in duplication of efforts or resources being
unequally distributed in schools (Hanna & Knight, 2011; Vergel de Dios, 2016).
In June 2012, USAID sponsored an inventory study of completed and ongoing ICT projects in
education all over the Philippines since 2000. Between 2001 and 2011, there were 64 ICT
initiatives implemented, and 32 of these initiatives were evaluated (Espinosa & Caro, 2011).
Espinosa and Caro (2011) revealed that initiatives were implemented in the form of
infrastructure (38%), policy components (23%), training competency (21%), and curriculum-
related trainings (19%). Of the initiatives, 67% were delivered in secondary schools, but most of
27
them were not sustainable as they were meant to be pilot projects and were not continued
(Espinosa & Cara, 2011). According to a USAID-funded study (Tan, 2015) on the status of
Philippine public high schools related to ICT-pedagogy integration, 39% of schools were in the
training stage, 50% were already in the piloting stage, and 11% were in the infusing or
integrating ICT-pedagogy stage. The study recommended further enhancement of ICT
competencies among Teacher Education Institutes across the country. A separate study funded
by AusAid (Tan, 2015) showed that (1) public school teachers recognized ICT knowledge,
exposure, training, and use as among their “ultimate needs” and (2) teachers’ technical
competency was adequate, but they still found using ICT to enhance pedagogy challenging.
Finally, a UNESCO Teacher Readiness Survey (Tan, 2015) that included 212 responses from
private (46.7%) and public (53.3%) basic education teachers (Grade 10) in 13 of the 17 regions
in the country found that 1) teachers needed more training in creating multimedia resources,
planning and implementing ICT-enhanced pedagogy, didactic teaching, and recording grades,
and 2) they needed to be more aware of national policies on the use of ICT in education.
2.5 Department of Information and Communications Technology
On May 23, 2016, DICT was officially approved as the sole department in the Philippines to
“formulate, recommend, and implement national policies, plans, programs and guidelines that
will promote the development and use of ICT” (RA, 2016, p. 4). It was a promulgation to merge
all government ICT functions and initiatives into a single department. For the education sector,
DICT was mandated to “formulate policies and initiatives in coordination with the DepEd (for
pre-school, elementary, and secondary schools) to develop and promote ICT in education
28
consistent with the national goals and objectives…” (p. 5). In 2017, along with DICT, the
government published a mid-term Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 (NEDA, 2017).
According to this strategic plan, the government will maximize and invest in the use of core and
emerging technology across all government agencies, and ICT was given the topmost priority. In
alignment with this mandate, at the first nationwide DepEd ICT Summit in 2018, school
administrators and ICT educators were challenged with the question, “How do we integrate
technology in teaching and learning in a way that enables our students to develop 21st century
skills (Trilling, 2005) and become globally competitive?” (DepEd, 2019). During the summit,
DepEd encouraged school administrators and teachers to use ICT for professional development
during Learning Action Cell sessions to improve teaching and learning (DepEd, 2019). Learning
Action Cell is DepEd’s core professional development program, and is a collaborative gathering
of teachers from the same school to improve teaching and learning practices in their own
classrooms (DepEd, 2016).
DepEd also announced its ICT Infrastructure Roadmap for 2018–2022. The roadmap included
distribution of ICT packages (laptops, projectors, tablets, and digital classrooms), Internet
connection, and incubation hubs (research and development centers) across primary and
secondary level public schools, starting with pilot schools in selected regions in 2018–2019.
These packages will further reduce computer to student ratios, which currently stand between
1:30 and 1:50 (DepEd, 2019), a huge improvement from the year 2006, when estimated ratios
stood at an overwhelming 1:25,000 in elementary schools and 1:111 in high schools (Lapus,
2006). However, while this roadmap provides definitive direction for addressing ICT
29
infrastructures in schools, the budget allocation for the ICT packages from 2019 to 2022 is still
subject to approval (DepEd, 2019).
Despite established plans to boost ICT in public schools, Abanil, the DepEd ICT director,
explained that prior to rolling out a massive ICT training for teachers, they still need to define the
competencies in “ICT skills that the teachers need. From there, we would determine the training
and types of programs for them” (Arayata, 2017). For the director, the limited Internet coverage
and providers in the country, logistics, and the size of DepEd are the major challenges in
advancing ICT in schools. For the current school year 2019–2020, DepEd is serving 27 million
students with 700,000 teachers in 47,000 schools (Arayata, 2017; Montemayor, 2019).
2.6 DepEd New K-12 Curriculum
The Philippines is one of the three countries in the world that currently have a 10-year education
system prior to college or university; the other two are Angola and Djibouti (Rappler, 2013). It is
the last in Asia to implement a K-12 curriculum. The former DepEd Secretary described the
introduction of the new K-12 curriculum as “arguably the most comprehensive basic education
reform initiative ever done in the country since the establishment of the public education system
more than a century ago” (SEAMEO, 2012, p. 5). The implementing guidelines of the new K-12
curriculum are mandated under Republic Act No. 1033, known as the Enhanced Basic Education
Act of 2013. It provides free education for kindergarten, elementary school from Grades 1-6,
four years of junior high school (Grades 7-10), and two years of senior high school (Grades 11-
12). In the previous curriculum, grade school was only for six years and secondary education for
four years.
30
In the context of this study, two features of the new curriculum will be presented. The first
involves ensuring integrated and seamless learning through a spiral progression. DepEd claimed
that the new K-12 curriculum (SEAMEO, 2012) provides a coherent transition of competencies
and standards between grade levels through a spiral progression. In the old science curriculum,
core science subjects were taught through a “discipline-based approach”—that is, biology was
offered in 2nd year, chemistry in 3rd year, and physics in 4th year. Now, in the new curriculum,
core science subjects are taught spirally, on a per quarter basis. For example, basic and
fundamental concepts in physics are introduced in the first quarter in 1st year, and more
complicated concepts and applications are added in the succeeding years until 3rd year in junior
high school.
The second feature involves making the curriculum relevant to learners through
contextualization and enhancement. The new curriculum strives to be relevant and responsive to
the needs of Filipino learners in the 21st century. The new curriculum addresses the needs of the
community; for example, a school aligns its curriculum to cater to the needs of its agricultural or
coastal community. Teachers are encouraged to teach using examples and activities based on
local culture, history, and reality. Learning and performance in schools should also match with
current labor market standards. DepEd started the implementation of the new junior high school
curriculum in academic school year 2012–2013.
2.7 TPACK and FoK as Complementary Frameworks
In this study, I investigated the experiences of select junior science teachers in integrating
technology into their teaching through technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge
31
(TPACK) (Herring, Koehler, & Mishra, 2016a, 2016b) and funds of knowledge (FoK)
(González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) perspectives.
TPACK framework:
As a framework, TPACK is an expanded form of Shulman’s (1986) pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK). Shulman emphasized that the nature of teachers’ knowledge should link the
domains of content and pedagogy as one rather than treating them as separate from each other.
The addition of technology into PCK’s framework gave rise to the concept of TPCK (Mishra &
Koehler, 2006). TPCK was then changed to TPACK to make it easy to read and remember
(Thompson & Mishra, 2007). As seen in Figure 6, TPACK consolidates the three forms of
knowledge—technology, pedagogy, and content—as an overlapping yet integrated whole and a
“Total PACKage” of teachers’ knowledge of professional growth (Herring, Koehler, & Mishra,
2016b). TPACK is a framework that helps teachers knowingly integrate technology to enhance
their teaching. It is a framework that addresses the emergence of newer educational technology
and complex needs of teachers (Koehler et al., 2013). This framework has been used to interpret
pedagogy in the broader field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In
physics education, for example, the deliberate use of technology like PeerWise online tool and
Peer Instruction pedagogy improved physics teacher candidates’ pedagogical content knowledge
(PCK) (Milner-Bolotin, 2016, 2018, 2019). In science education, teacher education students’
information literacy, inquiry skills, and science content knowledge were examined through the
overlapping components of TPACK (Sheffield, Dobozy, Gibson, Mullaney, & Campbell, 2015).
In math education, middle grade teacher candidates’ TPACK were investigated as they overcome
barriers in the access and use of technology and development of appropriate beliefs toward the
32
use of technology (Smith, Kim, & McIntyre, 2016). TPACK posits that before teachers decide
to use technology in their teaching, they have to actively and consciously determine which
technology is most appropriate and relevant. This appropriateness and relevance is based on the
specific needs of the students, the depth and breath of the content, the nature of the activity, the
capacity and existing infrastructure of the classroom, etc.
Figure 6: TPACK Framework (Reproduced by permission of the publisher © 2012 by tpack.org, 2009)
Funds of knowledge (FoK) as a framework:
Funds of knowledge are students’ strengths and resources bounded within the historical,
political, cultural, and social sphere of the communities to which they belong (González, Moll, &
Amanti, 2005). This framework provides a call to shift the focus of our educational discourses
away from high-stakes testing, national assessment, and accountability (Pinar, 2012; Biesta,
2013) and toward meaningful discourses on curriculum and pedagogy that center around
students’ lives as linked to their local histories and communities. Similar to TPACK, the FoK
33
framework provides a structure to further support PD for teachers as they address the larger
contextual, historical, political, and ideological environments that affect students’ lives.
The earliest application of FoK in education took place in the late 1980s (Gonzalez, 1995;
Llopart & Esteban-Guitart, 2018). FoK, as applied in education, involves the cultural experiences
and identities of students, parents, teachers, and other immediate members of the community
where the learning is taking place (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005). FoK has been used to
overcome differing perspectives in education, enhance relationships between schools and
families, and show respect and value for the cultural practices of all the members of the
community (Llopart & Esteban-Guitart, 2018). The recognition of students’ lifestyles and
cultural practices in teaching and learning builds mutual trust among teachers, students, and the
wider community. Gonzalez and Moll (2002) noted that mutual trust provides a link of
cooperation that can reduce prejudice and stereotypes. McIntyre, Roseberry, and Gonzàles
(2001) saw it as a connection between school curricula and educational practice to the lifestyles
of students. FoK as an approach to bridge students’ cultural knowledge and integrate it into the
curriculum involves three elements: 1) research in households and/or house visitations to identify
family/cultural resources and foster trust between teachers and families; 2) classroom
analysis/study of how to integrate such resources into classroom practices; and 3) study group
meetings/discussions on FoK approaches, house visitations, and classroom analysis that will
inform teaching and learning practices (Moll, 2014).
In this study, I chose TPACK and FoK to attend to the two features of the new K-12 curriculum
discussed above: spiral progression and contextualization. In the compulsory and newly
implemented K-12 curriculum of the DepEd in the Philippines, junior high school is an
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intermediate level between the elementary and senior high school levels. Teachers at this level
handle Grade 7-10 students. It is a new level unseen in the previous curriculum, which was
divided into two levels only: elementary and high school. A particularly interesting factor arises
for science teachers at this new level. Previously, every science teacher was a specialist in one of
the three core science subjects (biology, chemistry, physics), excluding general science. Now,
every teacher must cover a quarter of every core subject at a given grade level. Once a specialist,
a science teacher must now become a multi-specialist. Viewed through the TPACK lens, there is
a need to assess how a science teacher navigates in teaching all core subjects. As each subject
has specialized content, does a teacher have adequate subject knowledge for every core subject?
How is that knowledge made accessible to junior high school students? These questions bring
into examination the confidence and knowledge of a science teacher regarding how to address
the conceptions and preconceptions that students of diverse backgrounds bring with them to the
learning of a concept; strategies suitable to reorganize the conceptual understanding of students;
forms of representations of concepts such as demonstrations and use of analogies; choices of
time, place, and manner in which to engage students in learning with technology; etc.
Following TPACK’s framework, a science teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge of every
core science subject and technology knowledge are critical to effective teaching with technology.
Another issue of interest is how a teacher’s TPACK comes into practice in rural schools when
ICT infrastructures are inadequate. Do teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward technology
influence appropriate integration of ICT when there is an inadequacy of technology in rural
schools? How does school leadership improve rural school teachers’ TPACK?
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The lens of FoK raises conversations about rural junior high school science teachers’ teaching
practices that support another feature of the new curriculum—making learning relevant to
learners through contextualization. According to the DepEd Learning Action Cell Order (DepEd
LAC 2016), contextualization is the process of matching curriculum and pedagogy to the needs
and realities of students. Linking it to the heart of FoK’s perspective that learning is a social
process, contextualization means that teachers respond to opportunities to connect teaching and
learning in the classroom to students and communities’ experiences, interests, and aspirations.
Looking at the gap in exposure and utilization of mass media and ICT among teachers, students,
staff, and the community at large, how can science teachers ensure that teaching and learning
opportunities inside the classroom accommodate diversity and inclusion through the use of FoK?
How can teachers nurture the strengths and resources of students rooted in the evolving history
and culture of the community? Using the lens of FoK, this study examined how contextualization
is practiced by science teachers in rural schools to improve their PCK. The study also
investigated how science teachers’ TPACK broadens their knowledge about students’ FoK and
vice versa.
The use of TPACK and FoK in this study will provide opportunities to theorize and at the same
time problematize the experiences and challenges of rural junior high school science teachers as
they integrated ICT in their science classes. By examining their experiences through these lenses,
this study will draw conclusions that can inform educational policy, curriculum, and pedagogy.
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Chapter 3: Methodology
This chapter introduces the context and purpose of the study, and the details of the methodology
and methods used to answer the research questions.
3.1 The Study
To investigate the study’s research questions, I employed a nested and interpretative (Thomas,
2011, Duff, 2014, Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017) and descriptive case study approach (Yin, 1994,
2014) utilizing mixed-methods (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). The challenges and key
experiences of individual science teachers in integrating ICT in their science classes were
examined within a school and viewed in relation to select science teachers in similar rural public
junior high schools belonging to one division school (Bago City). As an interpretative case study,
the investigation was “presented in a more ostensibly objective, detached, and decontextualized
manner, reflecting distinct epistemologies and genres of conducting and reporting research”
(Duff, 2014, p. 236). Quantitative methods were employed to establish:
(i) broad and revolving patterns and connections among the experiences that science
teachers faced as they integrated ICT in their science teaching and
(ii) the elements of how such experiences informed curriculum, pedagogy, and the nature
of PD. This was done by quantitatively analyzing the online survey questionnaire.
The questionnaire was distributed to junior high school science teachers who belonged only
to the Division of Bago City and to teachers in all school divisions under DepEd Region VI.
Qualitative methods were used to:
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(i) provide an in-depth examination of the patterns and connections among the
experiences encountered by science teachers as they integrated ICT in their science
teaching drawn and analyzed from the quantitative data;
(ii) find out how such experiences informed curriculum, pedagogy, and the nature of PD;
(iii) explore existing exemplary teaching practices in the use of ICT; and
(iv) investigate how teachers’ experiences can contribute to improved ICT use at both
institutional and policy levels.
The qualitative methods used in this context were individual interviews, focus group
discussions, and observations and reflections made during science video-creation workshop
sessions. The data gathered from these methods were drawn from 60 days of fieldwork. Both
quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed, triangulated, and framed in terms of TPACK
and FoK. The next sections provide detailed descriptions of the case study approach, mixed-
methods, quantitative and qualitative data, and data analysis.
3.2 Descriptive Case Study
Using case study, I investigated the challenges faced by the selected science teachers as they
integrated ICT into their science classes. The case was about the science teachers’ integration of
ICT in science education in the select rural schools in the Philippines viewed through the lenses
of TPACK and FoK. Gall, Gall, and Borg (2003) call case study “the most widely used
approach to qualitative research in education” (p. 433). I used case study as defined by Duff
(2014) and Merriam (1998). Duff (2014) explained that case study is a “thorough understanding
of the phenomenon being studied” (p. 237). By looking at science teachers’ challenges in
integrating technology as a phenomenon, Duff’s definition of a case study provides a way of
38
conceptualizing science teachers’ situations and perspectives to provide a comprehensive and
detailed understanding of their experiences and insights. Similarly, Merriam (1998)
conceptualizes case study as a “method or means of investigating complex social units consisting
of multiple variables of potential importance in understanding the phenomenon” (p. 41). By
investigating different variables involved in the challenges faced by select science teachers as a
case, potential connections and paradigms might be revealed that will lead to theoretical
propositions. Generating propositions that inform current and future teaching practices is the
main goal of a descriptive case study in education (Tobin, 2012).
Unlike explanatory case study, which relates to research questions believed to have casual links
(Baxter & Jack, 2008; Yin, 2014), or exploratory case study, with research questions needing
further investigation (Yin, 2014), I chose a descriptive case study to look at the actual situation
of science teachers as a phenomenon within its real-world context (Yin, 1994, 2014). In some
single case studies, the three types of case study (explanatory, exploratory, and descriptive) can
exist all together. One example would be Graham Allison’s (1971) single case study of the 1962
Cuban missile crisis, which is considered a highly-recommended political science explanatory
case study (Yin, 2014). Allison proposed theories to illuminate (explanatory) the unfolding of the
U.S.-Soviet Union crisis (descriptive) and discussed how these theories might provide new
perspectives (exploratory) in “post-Cold War studies of foreign policy and international politics”
(Yin, 2014, p. 7). To some extent, the tendency of the three types of case study to overlap is due
to the similarity of the aims of the studies (Tobin, 2012). However, the nature of a descriptive
case study is distinctive in that it looks at the phenomenon and “tells it like it is” (Hackmann,
39
2002, p. 52) rather than attempting to “make causal statements or to describe unexplored
territory” (Tobin, 2012, p. 2).
A characteristic descriptive case study that supports this argument is found in a book entitled
Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum by William F. Whyte (1955). The
book presented a foundational ethnographic study in sociology that delved into the patterns of
interpersonal events and subculture in an immigrant urban neighborhood hidden by the name
“Cornerville” (Muschert, 2013; Yin, 2014). The remarkable discovery of how youths from lower
economic status families were able to elevate their situations through career advancement and
promoting neighborhood ties exemplifies this study as a classic descriptive case study reference.
In spite of the fact that it was done in a small urban community and more than 100 years had
passed since its publication, later case study researchers found that “Cornerville’s case” still
mirrors modern-day issues of “individual performance, group structure, and the social structure
of neighborhoods” (Yin, 2014, p. 8).
Another exemplar descriptive case study more recent than “Cornerville” is an in-depth analysis
by Neustadt and Fineberg (1978) of the immunization of 40 million Americans during the
presidency of Gerald Ford (1974-1977). The unprecedented immunization was initiated to ward
off fears of an outbreak reminiscent of the virus that brought about the worldwide 1918–1919 flu
pandemic. It started when the suspected swine flu virus infected a small number of soldiers at
Fort Dix, New Jersey. The widespread immunization campaign extended to 40 million
Americans in 10 weeks, but the virus never resurfaced. The controversial program was mired in
delays, administrative and legal complications, etc. In the hopes of extracting lessons for future
eventualities, Neustadt and Fineberg were requested by Department of Health, Education and
40
Welfare head Joseph Califano to investigate what really happened. Their findings were reported
as “The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease” in 1978. It became a highly
valuable case study reference for policymakers, scientists, and the general public as
“generalizable lessons for understanding the quandaries of health crises and public actions in
light of new threats by flu epidemics, such as the H1N1 strain of 2008-2010” (Yin, 2014, p. 8).
One of the celebrated descriptive case studies in science education was the ‘Case Studies in
Science Education; Vol. 1&2’ conducted by the University of Illinois as awarded and funded by
the National Science Foundation to Stake and Easley (Stake & Easley, 1978). It was a
“collection of field observations of science teaching and learning in American public schools
during the school year 1976-1977” (p. 6). The case was about the science teaching and learning
in American public schools during the school year 1976-1977. The results of this case study had
crucial implications for policy and research in the curriculum field at that time and were viewed
as pivotal to the several case study research conducted in the United States in the years that
follow and even up to the present.
3.3 Case Study as a Research Design
Case study is the most common research design used in educational technology (Ronau & Rakes,
2012). Gerring (2004) labelled it as “best defined as an intensive study of a single unit (a
relatively bounded phenomenon) where the scholar’s aim is to elucidate features of a larger class
of similar phenomenon” (p. 341). While several researchers (Harding, 1987; Sjoberg et al., 1991;
Stake, 2005; Yin, 2003, 2014) categorize case study as a research design, others classify it as a
method or methodology (Hamilton & Corbett-Whittier, 2013; Bassey, 1999; Merriam, 1988;
Orum, Feagin, & Sjoberg, 1991; Yin, 1994). VanWynsberghe & Khan (2007) provide further
41
discussion on how several authors vary in their classification of case study as a research design,
method, or methodology.
Yin (2014) outlines five aspects of the research design that are critical to support methodological
and design decisions under descriptive case study. These include the research questions, study
propositions, the unit(s) of analysis, the connection between the data and the propositions
(data collection procedures), and the data analysis techniques.
The application of these elements in this study is discussed below.
3.3.1 Research Questions
This study explored the following research questions:
1) What are the experiences, including key challenges, encountered by rural junior
high school science teachers during integration of ICT in their science teaching
within Philippines’s public high schools?
2) In what ways are these experiences related to (a) curriculum and pedagogy and
(b) P.D.?; and
3) How are these experiences, especially the key challenges, (a) transformed into
enablers of dissemination of good practices, and (b) informed both institutional
and government-level policy frameworks?
3.3.2 Study Propositions
Propositions guided me to narrow my focus, connecting and balancing particular aspects of the
study with the whole rather than looking at every aspect of the study, which is impossible to
achieve (Stake, 2005). Propositions are supported by the assumption that all my research
42
questions may not sufficiently address all that I need to study (Yin, 2014). The propositions I
included are as follows:
Proposition #1: The select science teachers might openly discuss the challenges they faced in
using ICT in their science classes when I engage with them as collaborator and co-creator of
knowledge. To do this, I conducted my 60-day fieldwork in the schools and with the science
teachers guided by the principles of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement. The former
Secretary of the Department of Health, Dr. Juan Flavier, popularized this movement by living
and serving as a “doctor to the barrios” among the barrios (villages) and communities in the
countryside (Flavier, 1970). Together with the principles of the movement, science teachers’
existing situations can be further captured by looking through the lenses of TPACK and FoK
frameworks.
Proposition #2: The experiences and challenges faced by science teachers in integrating ICT in
their teaching might relate to different and overlapping issues in curriculum, pedagogy, and P.D.
3.3.3 The Unit of Analysis and Case Selection
The unit of analysis in this case study is the group of select science teachers in eight of the nine
public junior high schools under the Division of Bago City, Negros Occidental, Philippines. The
analysis will focus on teachers’ challenges as they integrate ICT in their science classes.
Analysis was done with teachers as individuals and as a group (Yin, 2014).
Selection of the Case
If you are going to do a case study, you are likely to devote a significant portion of your
time to that case study…therefore, in using the case study method, your goal should be to
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select your case study carefully. ..The more significant your case…the more likely your
case study will contribute to the research literature or to improvements in practice (or to
completion of a doctoral dissertation).
(Neustadt & Fineberg, 2004, p. 3–4)
Neustadt & Fineberg (1978) are the authors of a government report titled “The Swine Flu Affair:
Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease,” a celebrated descriptive case study of a swine
flu scare in the United States. In 1983, they titled their book about this apparent threat of a world
epidemic The Epidemic That Never Was. With regard to the subject of selecting a case, both
authors recommended choosing the “most significant case possible” (Neustadt & Fineberg, 2004,
p. 4). A properly selected case study, according to them, might produce outstanding results,
which in turn could provide new theories or understanding.
In this study, the challenges of selected Philippine public junior high school science teachers as
they integrated ICT in their classes were emphasized in this case study due to radical changes
and overlapping tides of events in the recent history of public education in the Philippines.
Firstly, DepEd introduced the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 (EBEA) or the so-called
K-12 reform in 2016, of which the recent government of President Rodrigo Duterte was initially
skeptical (Oxford, 2017). The introduction of an extra year at the elementary level and the switch
to three years of junior high school and two years of senior high school from the previous total of
four years of high school created enormous re-organization, re-staffing, and re-alignment of
funds, resources, curriculum overhauling, etc. (Hernando-Malipot, 2019a, 2019b).
44
Secondly, in the same year, a new national department, DICT, was implemented to lead all ICT
policies and initiatives in the country (Vergel De Dios, 2016). The transition to the new
department and its bearing on DepEd’s ICT initiatives and flagship projects have potential
impacts for all public schools in the country, particularly for all junior high school science
teachers. Thirdly, the year 2016 was also the year when the new President, Rodrigo Duterte, took
office, bringing with him new leadership changes under DepEd. Currently, the new leadership
and the newly implemented K-12 program are faced with budget constraints (CNN, 2016;
Hernando-Malipot, 2019c).
Lastly, DepEd is investing highly in its computerization program and contextualization (i.e., use
of Indigenous knowledge and situating academic subjects in the context of the students). All
these developments have placed an increasing demand on all junior high school science teachers,
who, unlike their counterparts at the senior high school level, have to teach all the core science
subjects (general science, biology, chemistry, and physics) in a spiral progressive manner.
The selection of seven schools was done using convenience sampling (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017)
with the following favourable circumstances:
1) Representativeness of Philippine public junior high schools. The schools chosen in
the study are a mix of performing, improving, and relatively new public junior high schools. The
main high school is a performing public school whose students and/or teachers are consistently
leading, participating, and winning in division, regional, and national level competitions,
initiatives, and conferences. Schools that are improving are those schools whose teachers and
students are consistently striving to participate in division, regional, and national level
competitions, initiatives, and conferences. One junior high school, the farthest from the city
45
centre, is the newest school among the schools chosen in this study. It began operating as an
independent junior high school in its first academic school year (2019–2020) after being an
extension high school for a number of years (Field study, 2019).
2) Resources. The selected schools have a wide range of differences in terms of
accessibility and inaccessibility of instructional materials, student and teacher populations,
quality, training exposure, teaching experiences of science teachers, and teaching facilities. For
example, some schools can access the Internet via personal subscriptions due to the presence of
nearby telecommunication sites, while teachers from other schools have to leave their school and
go to a nearby town market or city to access the Internet and send the documents needed by
DepEd. The main high school has separate science laboratory rooms while most of the other high
schools do not.
3) Administrative support. All the selected schools have principals and heads of schools
that were open to providing assistance with my case study research. This assistance was in the
form of communicating and disseminating my research schedules and plans to the science
teachers and provisioning classrooms and meeting rooms for interviews, focus group
discussions, and science video-creation workshops.
4) Accessibility. All the host schools were accessible by bus, jeepney, and tricycle.
5) Language. As a native of this province, I speak the dialect of the town. Thus, I have
the capacity to understand the expressions, terminologies, and nuances that might otherwise be
lost or limited due to the context, unique experiences, and limited English proficiency of some
teacher-participants during my fieldwork.
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3.3.4 Data Collection Procedures
Data collection for this study is guided by combined quantitative and qualitative methods, also
known as mixed-methods or mixed-model research (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). A mixed-
methods toolbox combines the strengths of both methods and permits the researcher to bring into
focus a wider perspective on the phenomena under study. This method is more integrative than
just a combination of qualitative and quantitative data (Watkins & Gioia, 2015). Watkins and
Gioia (2015) emphasize that the integrative feature of a mixed-methods approach is that we draw
our analysis and interpretations from the data we have gathered as guided by the research
questions and methods to impact social work research, practice, and policy. In addition, a
combination of high quality quantitative and qualitative methods can inform the research process
at every level from exploration to evaluation (Trevas & Nimkoff, 2015).
I adopted and adapted mixed methods in this study to invite the interplay of conversations,
theory, and numerical data on the challenges of science teachers integrating ICT in their
teaching. I found that maximizing the strengths of both methods (quantitative and qualitative)
contributed to the trustworthiness (validity) criterion valued in qualitative methods (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985) and internal and external validity sought in quantitative methods (Johnson &
Christensen, 2000). The strengths of mixed methods are drawn from the three different
worldviews evolving around my developing identity as a researcher in connection to my research
sites and participants. These worldviews include:
(1) A positivist worldview—characterizing the reality of the challenges of science teachers as
single, objective, and fragmented (Creswell, 1994, 2003). This worldview will focus on
47
exploring the factors involved in the challenges science teachers face—testing, measuring, and
analyzing the data statistically. The statistical results are viewed as objective facts;
(2) A naturalistic worldview—looking into the meanings and nuances of science teachers’
experiences and insights and how they make sense of the challenges they are facing (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Duff, 2014). The data and generated analysis in this
worldview are seen as a co-construction of knowledge in the context of a community; and
(3) A pragmatic worldview—viewing both qualitative and quantitative data of science
teachers as parallel or sequential, compatible, and able to be used in a single research study
(Tashikorri & Teddie, 2003; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Kitchenham, 2019).
3.3.4.1 Quantitative Methods
Development and Deployment of the Questionnaire
I developed an online questionnaire (Appendix A) to provide school division and regional level
perspectives on the challenges of public junior high school science teachers as they integrated
ICT in their classes. Prior to deployment, the questionnaire went through item selection,
organization, and a face validity process (Hesse, 2018). Item selection was done by identifying
and creating items that address the research questions and are grounded in the theoretical lenses
(TPACK & FoK) of the study. The questionnaire was a self-administered instrument. It consisted
of 36 items with three different item types:
(1) open-ended questions;
(2) Likert-type ratings of agreement and disagreement items; and
(3) multiple choice questions.
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Table 2 provides representative examples for each type of item. For example, item D6 is an
open-ended question that asked about junior high school science teachers’ understanding of
technology in the context of science teaching. All questions labeled D asked for the demographic
profiles of science teachers. There were 10 more items similar to D6 that described teaching
practices or experiences over a specific time frame. This allowed responses from all science
teacher-participants to converge in a common time frame; thus, a question can capture a
collective representation of responses. For example, with the widespread use of laptops among
public school teachers, D9 is a sample multiple choice item that aimed to find out different ways
teachers use the device for instruction over a period of four weeks. Q1 was a sample of a Likert-
type scale question. It solicited teachers’ opinions on the notion that integrating technology in
science class improves teacher-student interaction.
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Q1. I am convinced that integrating technology in science teaching improves teacher-student interaction.
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree
D6. Someone used a metaphor to describe technology as "crossing the river without getting my feet wet".
Others described technology by citing the efficiency of MS Excel in computing for students' grades. As a
science teacher, how do you define technology?
D9. In what ways do you use your laptop in your science class? Which one did you do most frequently for the
last four weeks?
To show a video about a science concept, through online link or PowerPoint
To show diagram, pictures, or illustration of science concept
To send emails, announcement to students
For online quiz, games, puzzles
For assignments, short quiz
Others
D13. What were the ideas, concepts, beliefs, and practices related to the community, students, students’
families, students’ history and culture, etc. that you have used in your science class inside and outside the
classroom to help students understand or appreciate science concepts and theories for the last two grading
periods? Multiple answers allowed.
Parents’, grandparents’ and elder people’s experience and wisdom
Religious symbols, beliefs and practices – fiesta, festivities, etc.
Professions, jobs, hobbies within the barangay/community
Lands, rivers, seas, mountains, hills, landscapes, etc.
Local and indigenous music, news, sports, arts
Local agriculture, fishing, business practices
Gender, marriage, religion, laws
Table 2: Sample Items from the Questionnaire
The contents of the instrument were created based on the following references:
i) TPACK and FoK frameworks. The TPACK framework interlinks technology,
pedagogy, and content knowledge to enhance teaching and learning (Herring,
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Koehler, & Mishra, 2016a). This framework primarily conceptualizes the deliberate
use of technology (Milner-Bolotin, 2016) and provides indicators on the
comprehensiveness of teacher’s PCK (Shulman, 1986). This survey instrument was
framed to find out the interplay of science teachers’ TPACK proficiency. Moreover,
as science teachers are further encouraged to teach science in the context of students’
experiences and perspectives, the instrument included items to measure the extent of
FoK (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) they use.
ii) International comparative assessments. There are several international comparative
assessments that look into the impacts of ICT on education. Most of these
assessments concentrate either on how ICT enhances teaching and learning or on the
extent of investments in and use of ICT in schools for educational policy reforms (T.
No., 2009). Examples include SITES-Module 2 (Pelgrum, 2001; Kozma, 2003),
PISA, and OECD (2012, 2016).
The questionnaire was administered to eight out of nine junior high schools in the Division of
Bago City. It was also sent to all 19 school divisions in the whole Region VI to reach as many
science teachers as possible. The questionnaire was deployed and retrieved via the UBC
Qualtrics online survey platform (Survey Tool, 2019).
The items were organized in an inverted funnel format, moving from specific to narrow followed
by general questions at the end. Organizing the questions is crucial so as to minimize skewed
responses due to a redundancy effect (Hesse, 2018). This effect is seen when items seem to be
identical and repetitive so participants tend to lose concentration or skip them. Another pitfall is
fatigue effect, where participants become drained from answering several long questions.
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Fortunately, similar to current online survey platforms, the UBC Qualtrics survey tool has a
built-in expert review matrix that provides feedback on the type of items in the questionnaire,
which I also used as a guide prior to deployment. The face validity process was done as
described in the next section.
Questionnaire Validity
Prior to the administration of the online questionnaire instrument, the content was subjected to
validity and reliability tests. Generally, a validated instrument means that it can measure what it
is designed to measure. In educational measurement literature, validity is defined as “the degree
to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of the test score for the proposed uses”
(AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014, p. 11). For Knekta, Runyon, and Eddy (2019), validating a
survey is also time-sensitive, particularly with instruments that focus on issues like technology.
Technology is fast evolving, and a survey about technology created in the 1970s or 1980s might
appear obsolete if adopted and deployed in the current time. Considering the above descriptions
of validity, I asked researchers and practitioners who are currently and actively involved in
education and educational technology to validate my instrument. The reviewers included: 1) two
members of my PhD Committee; 2) two public high school principals in the Philippines; and 3)
two practicing public junior high school science teachers in the Philippines. Comments from
short individual interviews with those who joined the validation tests were used to improve the
content, wording of questions, type of response scales, and context of questions, and reduce the
length of time (approximately 3-5 minutes) of answering the instrument . As a result, the
questionnaire was reduced from 40 items to 36 items. The items were now composed of (a) 15
items that asked for demographic profiles (both open-ended and multiple type items) and (b) 21
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Likert-type ratings of agreement and disagreement items (Strongly agree =1, Agree = 2, Neutral
= 3, Disagree = 4, and Strongly Disagree = 5) that described potential aspects of science
teachers’ challenges as they use ICT in school.
Questionnaire Reliability
A reliability test is undertaken to determine the extent to which items in an instrument can
measure expected output when these items are repeated. In another words, reliability measures
the applicability and consistency of the instrument’s measurements (AERA, APA, & NCME,
2014). Cronbach’s alpha (α) is a common estimate of internal reliability of items in a scale such
as the Likert scale (Cronbach, 1951; Cronbach & Shavelson, 2004; Vaske, Beaman, &
Sponarski, 2017). Cronbach’s alpha values range from 0.00 to 1.0, and if items in the instrument
do not correlate among themselves, then the value can go negative. The issues among
statisticians and researchers relative to Cronbach’s alpha are: (1) what represents an acceptable
size for Cronbach’s alpha, since alpha depends on the quantity of items in the scale (Vaske,
Beaman, & Sponarski, 2017), and (2) in what manner alpha values are reported, particularly in
the context of science education (Taber, 2018). It is a common observation that Cronbach’s alpha
is frequently used in science education research. However, researchers “often cite alpha values
with little commentary to explain why they feel this statistic is relevant and seldom interpret the
result for readers beyond citing an arbitrary threshold for an accepted value” (p. 1273, emphasis
in original). In this study, the internal reliability or consistency of the questionnaire was
measured from the responses of five public junior high school science teachers coming from the
different school divisions in Region VI. The 21 Likert-type items were analyzed for internal
reliability. These items sought to find out how public junior high school science teachers view
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the use of technology (TPACK) and contextualization (FoK) in their classes and the extent of
DepEd’s ICT policies, support, and initiatives in their own respective school divisions. Using
SPSS version 23, the computed Cronbach alpha value was 0.86 (Table 3b), equivalent to good
internal reliability and 0.4 shy of the highest rating of 0.9 as excellent. The 0.86 internal
reliability meant that the five science teachers agreed that 86 % percent of the 21 items reflect
the actual contexts (to be discussed in detail in Chapter 4) they are facing as regards the use of
technology (TPACK) and contextualization (FoK) in their classes and the extent of DepEd’s ICT
policies, support, and initiatives in their own respective school divisions.
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a.)
b.)
c.)
Table 3: Questionnaire’s Internal Reliability
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The 21 Likert-type items in the study were also subjected to a test of interrater reliability; that is,
the extent to which raters (data collectors, researchers, participants) agree to the same item or
variable being measured (Mchugh, 2012). Two public junior high school science teachers were
asked to rate to what level the items represent science teachers’ views on the use of technology
(TPACK) and contextualization (FoK) in their classes and the extent of DepEd’s ICT policies,
support, and initiatives in their own respective school divisions. The extent of agreement
(interrater reliability) between the two raters is called Cohen’s kappa (Mchugh, 2012). The
Cohen’s kappa was computed using SPSS version 23. The result was 0.75 (Table 4c). A Cohen’s
kappa of 0.75 indicates that two teacher-raters have substantial agreement, whereas if the value
had further increased to 0.81 and higher, it would have meant that raters have almost perfect or
prefect agreement (Hallgren, 2012). A Cohen’s kappa of 0.75 specifically meant that the teacher-
raters have substantial agreement that the 21 sub-items can describe and measure different
aspects of the challenges teachers face as they use ICT in public junior science high schools.
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a.)
b.)
c.)
Table 4: Questionnaire's Interrater Reliability
3.3.4.2 Qualitative Methods: Interviews, Workshops, and Notes
Interviews
I employed interviews with both individuals and focus groups (for the complete list, kindly refer
to Appendix B) to gather in-depth understanding of phenomena or experiences (Lincoln & Guba,
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1985; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) faced by science teachers as they use ICT in their classes. I used
Duff’s (2015) proposition on the purpose of interviews although it was written in the context of
transnationalism, multilingualism, and identity in applied linguistics research. She said that
observation and interview-based case studies have the “potential to reveal, with sufficient
contextualization and detail, the practices, ideologies, tensions, contingencies, and dilemmas that
a small number of selected transnational individuals and families may face in their lives in
connection with language” (p. 62). Such a statement seemingly mirrors the potentialities of
interviews in my study to uncover the challenges faced by science teachers related to technology,
pedagogy, content, and use of funds of knowledge in their teaching.
Semi-structured One-on-One Interviews
This type of interview is the most frequently used type of interview in social sciences using
qualitative methods (Elliot et al., 2016). It provides chances for the interviewees to discuss ideas
and broad topics more openly compared to a structured interview. The science teachers in this
study were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol with the prior understanding
that we could change the order and level of questions, offer follow-up questions and
clarifications, and take a break anytime. The questions (Table 5) raised in the interviews were
formulated based on the initial propositions of this study, responses from the questionnaire,
literature review, and my personal past experiences of being a high school teacher myself and a
former student of this school division. The interviews were conducted after teachers had
completed the questionnaire. The average interview ranged from 40 to 60 minutes. The
interviews took place Dec. 5–12, 2019. There were nine teachers interviewed coming from eight
schools.
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One-on-one Interview Questions
1. Why did you answer that these (from UBC Qualtrics Survey) are the common problems you
encountered every time you use tools/gadgets in your science class?
2. What were the trainings/workshops did your principal/department head asked you to
participate for the last 3 years?
3. Have you attended all of them? Why and why not?
4. What were the things you learned that helped you improve your teaching?
5. What were the things you wished you learned in those trainings/workshops? And why?
6. How important is it for students in science to integrate ideas/concepts/beliefs/practices related
to the community, students, students’ families, students’ history/culture?
Table 5: Sample Interview Questions
Focus Group Interviews
The focus group interviews were conducted to allow science teachers to discuss their communal
experiences, perspectives, and beliefs (Krueger & Casey, 2010) as they integrated ICT into their
classes. The sessions were avenues for science teachers to reflect on their practices in relation
with other teachers’ practices (Dilshad & Latif, 2013). There were five separate focus group
sessions conducted from Dec 5, 2018 to Jan. 12, 2019 with teachers from five schools. The
duration of sessions ranged from 40 to 60 minutes, and the group size was between three and five
science teachers. As with the one-on-one semi-structured interviews, the questions (Table 6)
were formulated from initial propositions of this study, responses from the questionnaire,
literature review, and my personal past experiences of being a high school teacher myself and a
former student of this school division.
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Focus Group Questions
1. Why is it that most of you mentioned that these (from UBC Qualtrics Survey) are the common
problems you encountered every time you use tools/gadgets in your science class?
2. How can you keep up yourself as a teacher with your students in terms of being confident and
knowledgeable in using these tools/gadgets/computers/APP/etc.?
3. In what way can your school administration and the division in general help/assist you to level
up your knowledge and confidence to use technology in your science class?
4. How do project on 2-3 years from now?
a) What programs or training/workshop will the school/division offer on ICT?
b) Your level of confidence and knowledge in using ICT
c) Any support that your school administration will provide
Table 6: Sample Focus Group Questions
Science Video-Creation Workshops Integrated with Observations and Reflections
The introduction of science video-creation workshops was funded by the UBC Graduate and
Postdoctoral Studies Public Scholar Initiative (PSI, 2018). As a PSI scholar, the focus of my
scholarship is through a holistic concern about how knowledge can make a difference in the
community. Part of my research at PSI aimed to clarify and build upon significant aspects of my
dissertation about the difficulties encountered by STEM teachers in rural areas in the Philippines
as they integrate local knowledge into digital video productions.
The science video-creation workshops (Appendix C) were composed of spiral progression
sessions as follows: (1) taking, editing, and annotating screenshots of still pictures; (2) recording
and editing audio and video clips; and (3) pre-production, production, and post-production of a
3–5 minute science video. The media used in the workshops were taken from science teachers’
personal files (photos and videos of the local community e.g., plants, animals, rivers, etc. taken
using their smartphones) and from the Internet with proper citations. The software and hardware
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used in the workshops were licensed and provided free of charge for the teacher-participants.
These included Camtasia and Snagit (TechSmith, 2018) for the photo, audio, and video-editing
software. The software was downloaded and run on science teachers’ own laptops. There were
nine sessions conducted with each session lasting 2–5 hours. The workshop sessions were given
per school and the number of science teachers who participated in each school ranged from one
to four. The workshops were given to five schools (two schools had more than one session)
between Jan. 3 and 15, 2019. The workshops’ schedules including those for interviews and focus
groups are presented in Table 7. The contents of the workshop aligned with the research
questions of this study and were validated by my PhD committee. I conducted all the science
video workshops. The workshop participants were also research participants who signed up.
Date Location One-on-one Focus Group (no. Science Video

(Exact name Interview of teachers) Creation Workshop
withheld) (no. of teachers)
Dec. 6, 2018 School 1 1
Dec. 7, 2018 School 2 2 (3, 4)
Dec. 8, 2018 School 3 1 1 (3)
Dec. 9, 2018 School 4 3
Dec. 11, 2018 School 5 1 (5)
Dec. 12, 2018 School 1 1
School 6 1
Dec. 13, 2018 School 7 1 1 (3)
Jan. 3, 2019 School 2 1 (4)
School 7 1 (2)
Ja. 4, 2019 School 2 1 1 (3)
School 8
Jan. 9, 2019 School 3 1 (3)
Jan. 10, 2019 School 7 1 (3)
School 2 1 (3)
Jan. 11, 2019 School 4 1 (1)
Jan. 15, 2019 School 1 1 (1)
Total 9 5 (18) 8 (20)
Table 7: Schedules: Interviews, Focus Groups, & Workshops
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With respect to science movie creation, I have a combined two years of experience as a
Technology Support Staff member and Graduate Research Assistant in the Faculty of Education
in Educational Technology Support (ETS) with the UBC Department of Curriculum and
Pedagogy (EDCP). The mentorship of my supervisor, Dr. Milner-Bolotin, has helped me further
integrate digital technologies into the pedagogical practices of teacher candidates in the Teacher
Education Program (Tembrevilla & Milner-Bolotin, 2019). I facilitated video editing and coding
workshops for science and physics teacher candidates in Vancouver. My supervisor and I created
50 STEM videos for K-12 teachers, teacher candidates, and students (Milner-Bolotin, 2017).
These videos have been viewed on YouTube by people in more than 35 countries.
The science video-creation workshops in this study were conducted to find out the skills and
interests of science teachers related to the use of ICT, how they used ICT based on their content
and pedagogical needs (TPACK), and the extent to which they integrated FoK through science
videos. Through these science video-creation workshops, teachers can manifest implicitly and
explicitly the challenges they have in using ICT, how and when they used local knowledge with
ICT in their science classes, the extent of administrative support received, and the nature of
professional development they have in their respective schools and in the school division as a
whole. I kept written observations in the form of field notes and memos, and collated science
teachers’ reflections before, during, and after the workshops.
Researcher Notes
The written notes I recorded are field notes and memos. Field notes contain my “private,
personal thoughts, ideas, and queries regarding [my] research observations and interviews”
(Phillippi & Lauderdale, 2018, p. 381). They enrich my data for in-depth contextualization and
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understanding (Patton, 2002; Creswell, 2013) of the science teachers’ challenges as they use ICT
in their classes.
My memos were divided into two types; procedural and analytic (Myers, 2009). Procedural
memos describe the paths and steps I used in gathering my data. Analytical memos are the notes
and comments I made while reading or writing the interview transcripts, codes, written
observations, and reflections of teachers in the science video creation workshops. These memos
enabled me to “step back from the data and move beyond codes” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p.
72).
3.3.5 Data Analysis Techniques
The last of the five core aspects of this descriptive case study design, which started with research
questions, study propositions, units of analysis, and data collection procedures, is data analysis
techniques. This aspect will describe the “specification and justification of the methods to be
used to reduce and analyze the data” (Blaikie, 2010, p. 25).
3.3.5.1 Quantitative Data Analysis: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
In contrast with the qualitative data analysis done in this study, quantitative analysis seeks to
quantify a phenomenon rather than focusing on meanings (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Patton,
2002). As described in Section 3.3.4.1, the questionnaire was sent to junior high school science
teachers in the school division of Bago City and the rest of the school divisions in DepEd Region
VI. The aim of the questionnaire was to quantify the challenges of these teachers as they use ICT
in their classes at both division and regional levels. Specifically, the quantification of teachers’
challenges means that this study will identify the common factors (latent variables) from a “large
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amount of data in individual variables and coalesce it into related groupings so that more general
trends in the data can be explored” (Emerson, 2017, p. 302).
Exploratory Factor Analysis
I decided to use exploratory factor analysis (EFA) based on my research design and the nature of
my data. The analysis involves common factor modeling that seeks to establish correlations
among the set of latent variables similar to (Fabrigar, Wegener, Maccallum, & Strahan, 1999)
confirmatory factor analysis.
The current study has a new survey instrument. The very first goal of this instrument is to
explore the existing factors surrounding the experiences of science teachers as they use ICT. This
constitutes the first grounds for using EFA. The EFA has no a priori number of common factors,
since the number of common factors is based on the generated data of the study (Fabrigar et al.,
1999). In EFA and in this study, a priori is something I thought of through “reasoning or
deduction rather than through observation or data” (Emerson, 2017, p. 302). By contrast,
researchers deciding to use CFA have to specify a definite number of factors together with the
pattern of factor loadings extracted from the data. In EFA, the latent variables are “analyzed
together, and items sharing a substantial amount of variance are collapsed into a factor” (Knekta
et al., 2019, p. 7). In a CFA, the “shared variance among items that are prespecified to measure
the same underlying construct is extracted” (p. 7, emphasis in original). In EFA, as stated above,
no a priori number of common factors is required; the process itself specifies the relationships,
whereas in CFA the common factors are initially identified by the researcher.
Second, based on Knekta et al. (2019), I used EFA since I do not have robust empirical grounds
to precisely determine what “common factors exist or what specific measured variables these
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common factors are likely to influence” (p. 277) in my data, whereas CFA requires that there
must be an existing “sufficient theoretical and empirical basis” (p. 277). The precise
identification of common factors in CFA is appropriate in testing of identified hypotheses from a
hypothesized or theoretical model extracted from the data (Finch & West, 1997, Knekta et al.,
2019) and researchers using CFA do not depend on the a priori nature of data. The circumstance
of having a limited “theoretical and empirical basis” for identifying common factors is due to the
fact that my questionnaire is in its early stages of development. Thus, it is more appropriately
treated with EFA (Knekta et al., 2019) since the use of CFA presupposes that a researcher is
“using a preexisting survey that has established structure” (p. 7).
Lastly, even if EFA and CFA are often used together in a way that EFA offers grounds to define
a CFA model (Fabrigar et al., 1999) and EFA results can “ideally” be confirmed with a CFA
(Knekta et al., 2019), the confirmation should never be done using the same sample used for the
EFA. The reason for this is that the subsequent CFA result will just be a repetition of “many of
the relationships that were established through the EFA” (Knekta et al., 2019, p. 8). The
desirable way of computing CFA is from an independent sample, ideally (if the study has a
larger sample size) splitting the sample size into two independent groups, one for the EFA and
the other for the CFA (Fabrigar, et al., 1999; Knekta, et al., 2019). Taking into account this issue
of sample size, I opted solely for the EFA.
In regards to the appropriateness of sample size, researchers generally agree that larger sizes
enhance the degree of approximation and statistical range (Gagne & Hancook, 2006). However,
sample size depends on several considerations such as the number of factors, size of factor
loadings, correlation between factors, etc. (Gange & Hancook, 2006; Wolf et al., 2013).
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Assessing a desirable sample size also goes along with consideration of the properties of
measured variables like communality. Communality refers to the degree to which an item
correlates with all other items from the data (Communality, 2019). In this study, my sample size
is 141. This size comfortably fits the EFA ,where N=50 is considered as a “reasonable absolute
value” (de Winter, Dodou, & Wieringa, 2009, p. 147). This size also falls under Fabrigar et al.’s
(1999) specifications. For Fabrigar et al. (1999), communalities equal to or greater than 0.70 and
having four to five variables for each factor would be adequate for a sample size of 100 or better.
However, based on Leandre et al.’s (2012) specification (where Fabrigar and Wegener from
Fabrigar et al., 1999 are co-authors), my sample size is a quarter less than suggested—at least
200 sample size for communalities of 0.40-0.70 and at least three items for each factor. Many
more authors and researchers suggest minimum sample sizes from 100-250 (Guilford, 1954;
Catell, 1978; Gorsuch, 1983). Others recommend determining the ratio of sample size to the
number of variables (Hogarty et al., 2005), yet final “decisions about the quality of factor
solution depended upon which criteria were examined” (p. 202).
With the three reasons cited above for choosing the EFA over CFA and doing the EFA alone, the
next consideration is to test the suitability of my data for EFA structure detection
(Communalities, 2019). The two tests for data suitability I used included the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin
Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (KMO, 2019). The
KMO detects the proportion of variance in my data’s latent variables; KMO values that are
greater than 0.50 and close to 1.0 show that EFA is desirable for my data. Bartlett’s test of
sphericity, on the other hand, is an identity matrix that suggests whether my latent variables are
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suitable or not for EFA. Computed values of 0.05 or less signify that EFA is suitable for my data
(KMO, 2019).
After resolving the use of EFA over CFA, outlining the fit of my sample size for EFA, and
describing the test of suitability that will be used for my data, the next steps were deciding the
number of factors to extract for EFA, performing factor extraction, and choosing factor rotation
(Fabrigar et al., 1999; Knekta et al., 2019). As recommended by experts (Gorsuch, 1983; Zwick
& Velicer, 1986; Velicer, Eaton, & Fava, 2000; Hayton, Allen, & Scarpello, 2004), I used
multiple approaches to determine the number of factors. This included the following: Velicer’s
(1976) Minimum Average Partial (MAP) Test, Horn’s (1965) Parallel Analysis, Cattell’s (1966)
Scree Test, and Maximum Likelihood and Principal Axis Factoring. Courtney (2013) further
supported the idea of using multiple techniques in the determination of the number of factors,
since choosing the appropriate number of factors “has a direct effect on results and subsequent
theory development” (p. 1).
Once all the considerations mentioned above were factored in, the very last step for the EFA is
the interpretation and reporting of factors (Kenkta et al., 2019). The reporting of the factors will
be discussed in the next chapter.
3.3.5.2 Qualitative Data Analysis: Thematic Analysis
The qualitative data in this study included one-on-one interviews, focus group interviews, written
observations and reflections during science video-creation workshop, memos, field notes, and
documents from DICT and DepEd. The qualitative analysis for these data focused on the types
and meanings of the challenges (phenomena) of science teachers as they used ICT in their
classes rather than quantifying them (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Patton, 2002). Qualitative data
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were contextualized using Talmy’s (2010) qualitative interview framework while being
subjected to thematic analysis. Talmy (2010) conceptualizes research interviews as both
“research instruments” and as a “social practice” (p. 132). As a research instrument, he argues
parallel to Duff (2015) that interviews are assumed to serve as a resource for finding out “truths,
facts, experience, beliefs, attitudes, and/or feelings of respondents” (p. 131). However, according
to Talmy (2000), if interviews are viewed as social practice (his own view), more than
establishing “factual” data for analysis, researchers are “problematizing the assumptions that
constitute the research instrument perspective, and treating interviews themselves as topics for
investigations” (p. 131, emphasis in original). From his conceptualization, I chose three elements
of interviews: data, voice, and analytic approaches. Each element was interpreted as a research
instrument and a social practice, respectively. This conceptualization was chosen because it was
based on a series of research projects that used interviews in case study, ethnography, and
qualitative-based study paradigms. Although the conceptualization was in the context of applied
linguistics, I view my qualitative data as transcripts of meanings created by and through me and
my research participants. The three elements I picked align with my choice. The first interview
element is data. The interview transcripts as “data” are not only “reports” shared by the
interviewees but also “accounts” co-constructed by both the interviewees and interviewer. The
second element is voice. As with the first element, interviews “give voice” not only to the
interviewees but also to the interviewer. The voice is “heard” as a co-construction of both voices.
The third element is the analytic approach. The themes extracted from the analysis of interview
transcripts do not merely “speak for themselves” as many interview analyses and reports would
present; rather, themes are viewed as a co-construction of knowledge between interviewer and
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interviewees. As co-constructed knowledge, there are research values attached to them while
they are subjected to thematic analysis.
Specific to observation and reflection data from science video-creation workshops, I used
Taber’s (2005) “Teacher-as-learning-doctor” and van Es and Sherin’s (2002) “Learning to
Notice” frameworks. The metaphor of “teacher-as-learning-doctor” (Taber, 2005) presupposes
that teachers are acting and learning like medical doctors as they explore “diagnosis, prevention,
and treatment of learning ‘bugs’” (p. 219). This method of exploring involves the “typology of
learning impediments,” a framework that guides teachers as they examine possible reasons why
students failed to develop an understanding of scientific concepts as outlined in teachers’ lesson
plans. In the workshops, I use this analogy as a “mentoring the mentors approach” to detect
aspects of teachers’ TPACK and FoK integration that might implicitly and explicitly indicate the
(1) challenges they faced in using ICT and (2) administrative support and nature of professional
development that they have in their respective schools. To help me “detect,” I employ van Es and
Sherin’s (2002) “Learning to Notice” framework. In the context of van Es and Sherin’s (2002)
study, mathematics teachers were watching a video of a teacher doing a math lesson with
students. Using the framework, the teachers who were watching the video were encouraged to
identify specific teaching aspects that arose in the video and relate them to the wider concept or
bigger ideas of teaching and learning processes. The key idea in this framework is to focus on a
specific or distinct aspect or event in the teaching, since teachers could not conceivably capture
all the things they are observing at a given time. In the current study, this framework is translated
to instances like paying attention to a specific science concept teacher-participants are
introducing in their video that might be a potential learning impediment (Taber, 2005). It pertains
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also to some specific skills in video editing that might connect to the nature of professional
development science teachers have in their schools.
Thematic Analysis
Thematic analysis is one of the most popular methods of data analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2013)
and the most fundamental approach to qualitative data analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2006). It is a
method for “identifying themes and patterns of meaning across a data set in relation to a research
question” (Braun & Clarke, 2013, p. 175). It is also a “process of analyzing data according to
commonalities, relationships, and differences across a data set” (Gibson & Brown, 2009, p. 127).
The process of looking and naming themes across quantitative and qualitative data sets in this
study is viewed through the lenses of TPACK and FoK. Below is the sequence of steps I
followed in conducting a thematic analysis as suggested by Clarke & Braun (2013):
(1). Transcribing and identifying items of interest. All audio interviews were recorded
using a digital Sony model and backed up with the iPhone 6 iTalk recording app. These
interviews were transcribed, member checked, and stored in NVivo. Other qualitative data
(written observations and reflections made during science video-creation workshop, memos, and
field notes) were also uploaded in NVivo. Through this Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data
Analysis Software (CAQDAS), I organized my data and transcripts to generate a visual focus,
systematize salient features, and identify items of interest related to science teachers’ challenges
surrounding TPACK and FoK as they use ICT in their classes.
(2). Coding and creating themes. I coded interview transcripts, observations, and
reflections from the science video-creation workshops separately, aided by my field notes and
memos. To code is to “break down and understand a text and to attach and develop categories
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and put them into an order in the course of time” (Flick, 2002, p. 178). I followed Corbin &
Strauss’s (2008) open-axial-selective coding, which is the analytic approach that best matched
the exploratory nature of this study in identifying initial themes. The generated initial themes
were condensed (axial coding) and core codes were finalized (selective coding).
(3). Reviewing themes and naming their existing relationships. This stage is
practically the equivalent of going back to the open-axial-selective coding approach in step
number two and then creating a storyline to establish the emerging relationships among themes.
3.4 Triangulation: Merging Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis
Triangulation is a process of defining the unknown position of a 3rd object based on the known
positions of two objects as applied in military operations, navigation, and surveying (Webb et al.,
1966). Employed in social sciences, it is a process where researchers look for the converging
point among multiple sources of data to form themes (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Combining
multiple data from both quantitative and qualitative analysis can increase rigor and
trustworthiness of the findings (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2007) and provide breadth and depth to
the themes (Gay et al., 2006), though not all convergence of data provides consistency and
coherence in the findings (Mathison, 1988). In this study, triangulation was done by comparing
the themes generated from both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The process of comparing
themes resulted in the emergence of new and overarching themes. These themes as research
findings are used for reporting.
3.5 Ethical Considerations in Research Design
In this section, I outline the ethics procedures of this study as part of my data collection
procedures. My ethics application was successfully approved by the UBC Behavioural Research
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Ethics Board (BREB) (Appendix D) as the UBC-internal approver and the DepEd School
Division Superintendent and DepEd Region VI (Appendix E) as external approvers. The Permit
Letter to Conduct a Study approved by the external bodies was cascaded to the region’s science
supervisor head and all the School Division Superintendents in Region VI. In return, all the
School Division Superintendents relayed the letter to all junior high school principals and
science department heads until it reached the attention of junior high school science teachers.
3.5.1 Recruitment
Due to limited logistics and resources, the public junior high school science teachers in the
DepEd Division of Bago City were chosen as the main focus of this study rather than the whole
Region VI. They were invited (Appendix F) to complete the online questionnaire, join the one-
on-one interviews and focus group discussions, and attend science video-creation workshops
after agreeing on all procedures and conditions as stipulated in the “Consent Letter” (Appendix
G). Teachers coming from the different school divisions in Region VI were primarily invited to
complete the online questionnaire with the purpose of generating region-wide level trends and
perspectives. Teachers who signed up for the one-on-one interviews were contacted via email
addresses they provided in the last part of the questionnaire.
There were 39 junior high school science teachers coming from eight of the nine schools in the
School Division of Bago City who consented and completed the online questionnaire. However,
due to conflicting administrative functions and commitments, not all of them were able to join
the focus group discussions, one-on-one interviews, or science video-creation workshops. For
reports and future publications, a pseudonym was assigned to each teacher and their data to
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maintain their confidentiality and preserve privacy. All the data were kept on an encrypted
password-protected computer and physical documents were kept in locked file storage at UBC.
3.5.2 The Impacts of Researcher’s Identities
In this study, particularly during my fieldwork, I considered myself not only both as an insider
and outsider but as occupying a space between the teachers and their community as well. Social
scientists and researchers in action research have rigorously studied the critical impacts of a
researcher whose roles and identities overlap. Often, the researcher’s role is described as either
an “Outsider” or “Insider” (Kerstetter, 2012). An outsider is someone who is neutral and
objective and does not belong to the research group, while an insider has shared experiences and
engagements with members of the research team. However, Corbin Dwyer and Buckle (2009)
noted that the researcher’s cultural background, relationships to research participants, etc. also
influence his or her status relative to a research group over time. This growing status creates the
“space between” the outsider/insider’s identities. Thus, the researcher’s role evolves as a
combination of an outsider/insider/space between.
As an insider, I was a student leader and one of the top-performing students until my graduating
year at Ramon Torres National High School. I was a practicum student teacher for three months
under one of the physics teachers in this school, who was also a research participant in this study.
Three of the current high school principals were my former high school teachers. One of them
was my former physics teacher, while another was my Student Government Organization
adviser. One principal was a former scoutmaster during my time as a high school boy scout.
Some of the science teachers I interviewed were the brother, sister or relative of my high school
classmates and friends. Moreover, like most of the teachers in this division school, I was also a
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student trained to be a teacher by a state-funded teacher education college. As an outsider, I
arrived in this school as a physics and science teacher who taught in a privileged exclusive
Catholic school for girls in an urban private high school in the Philippines. It was a school
detached from the realities and environments of rural public high schools. I am also a university
researcher, a position that connotes prestige among public high school teachers. These teachers
regarded university researchers like me as individuals with expertise. However, public school
teachers are also often skeptical of researchers like me, believing we are only interested in
mining their data and artefacts and converting them into research publications.
On the other hand, as a result of my daily contact with most of the science teachers, especially
during lunch, recess, etc., I felt that I developed some sense of community with them—my third
identity as “space between.” I joined with them when they visited the wake of a former
colleague. I ate with them during break time. I was an observer during their department meeting.
I went home with them riding on the same tricycle and bus. Some of them were brothers or
sisters of my friends and cohorts in the high school. I felt that I was part of their science
department community.
In order to balance these overlapping identities that I project to my research participants, I
consciously tried to maintain a strong impartiality and relationship of trust towards all of them.
This was an endeavor to maintain the robustness, reliability, and validity of my data gathering
and the whole procedure of critical analysis and triangulation (Finlay, 2012). This was also my
attempt to minimize the Hawthorne effect (Franz, 2018); that is, limiting the potential biases
where science teachers are displaying responses they perceive as expected, favorable, and
satisfactory responses for my research. Finally, as a variant of the Hawthorne effect, I devoted
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extra attention to how I used and emphasized the recording tools I utilized to record and observe
my participants. When science teachers are aware that their speech, conversations, and actions
are being recorded for special purposes, e.g., international research, they might deviate from their
casual ways when they are left by themselves. Such deviation would generate data that might
affect the content and quality of research analysis of this study. Gordon (2013) calls this the
“Observer’s Paradox,” cautioning researchers that any phenomenon being observed is
undermined by the presence of the observer and the tools being used to observe the phenomenon.
3.5.3 Data Collection Timeline
I arrived at my field site on Nov. 28, 2018 and completed data gathering on Jan. 28, 2019. The
online questionnaire was first distributed to the main participants, i.e., the teachers in the
Division of Bago City, on Dec. 5, 2018. The interviews focus group discussions, and science
video-creation workshops followed until January 15, 2019. Teachers from other school divisions
in the region were invited to complete the survey from June 1 to July 30, 2019.
3.6 Summary
This chapter delved into detailing the methodology and methods of my study. I used a
descriptive case study approach centered on mixed methods to find answers to my research
questions. I discussed the quantitative and qualitative data and process of analysis under the five
subheadings of descriptive case study research design: (1) research questions, (2) study
propositions, (3) units of analysis, (4) data collection procedures, and (5) data analysis
techniques.
The quantitative method used an online survey questionnaire. It was deployed to generate
division- and region-wide perspectives of the challenges faced by select public junior high
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school science teachers in the Division of Bago City, Negros Occidental, Philippines as they
integrate ICT in their classes. The qualitative method gathered data in the form of one-on-one
interviews, focus groups, observation and reflection notes from workshops, and field and memo
notes. These data were analyzed to describe trends and patterns of challenges at the division
level. Table 8 summarizes both methods used to address the research questions of this study.
Research Questions and the Summary of Methods Used

Research Questions Quantitative Method Qualitative Method
1) What are the experiences, Online Questionnaire: *One-on-one semi-
including key challenges *Validity and structured interviews
by rural junior high school reliability tests
science teachers, during *Focus group interviews
integration of ICT in their *Descriptive Statistics
science teaching within *Science video-creation
Philippine’s public high *Exploratory Factor workshops
schools? Analysis
*Thematic Analysis using
2) In what ways are the TPACK & FoK
encountered experiences frameworks
relate to (a) curriculum and
pedagogy (b) professional *Additional frameworks
development (PD); and used for analysis:
a) Talmy’s (2010)
3) How are the experiences, Interview framework
especially the key
challenges (a) transformed b) Taber’s (2005)
into enablers of Teacher-as-learning-
dissemination of good doctor framework
practices and (b) in turn
inform both institutional c) Van Es & Sherin’s
and Government level (2002) Learning to
policy frameworks? Notice
Table 8: Research Questions and Summary of Methods Used
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Chapter 4: Quantitative Data Analyses
This chapter presents the quantitative analyses of the questionnaire data. The analyses cover the
discussion of the general profile of public junior high school science teachers as research
participants and the emerging themes related to the challenges they faced as they used ICT.
Teachers’ general profiles are described using descriptive statistics and the emerging themes are
extracted from the EFA.
4.1 Quantitative Data Analysis: The Questionnaire
The 36-item questionnaire (Tables 9-10, also in the Appendix A) adapted from the original 40-
item questionnaire and validated was used to provide school division and regional level
perspectives on the experiences of public junior high school science teachers as they integrate
ICT in their classes. The data from the teachers in the Division of Bago City were gathered in
Dec. 2018, while data from the rest of the teachers in DepEd Region VI were gathered in June
2019. The questionnaire was cascaded to the teachers through mailing lists managed by the
regional science supervisor. Participation was voluntary, and so no specific sampling procedures
were observed. The questionnaire contained 15 open-ended and multiple-choice questions and 21
Likert-type agree-disagree items on a five-point scale for a total of 36 questions. The 21 Likert-
type items (Table 9) were used for the EFA and the 15 items (combination of open-ended and
multiple-choice type) (Table 10) were reported as tally and percentage.
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Challenges
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

Q1. I am convinced that integrating technology in science teaching improves teacher-student interaction.
Q2. I am convinced that integrating technology in science teaching improves students' understanding of science.
Q3. I am convinced that integrating technology in science teaching improves teacher confidence in the use of
technology.
Q4. I am convinced that integrating technology in science teaching reduces digital divide between teacher and
student.
Questions #5-#7 apply to ICT initiatives implemented in any levels from two years ago or earlier
Q5. Were there useful/relevant ICT (information and communications technology) projects or initiatives from
your Division level implemented in science in your school?
Q6. Were there useful/relevant ICT (information and communications technology) projects or initiatives from
your Region implemented in science in your school?
Q7. Were there useful/relevant ICT (information and communications technology) projects or initiatives from the
National level implemented in science in your school?
Q8. My school's division provided relevant technology for science teaching four weeks ago.
Q9. My school's division provided relevant technology for science teaching last year.
Q10. My school's division provided relevant technology for science teaching two years ago.
Q11. My school's division provided relevant and appropriate technology training for science teachers two weeks
ago.
Q12. My school's division provided relevant and appropriate technology training for science teachers last year.
Q13. My school's division provided relevant and appropriate technology training for science teachers two years
ago.
Q14. I am convinced that students learn and understand more about science when ideas, concepts related to
the community are integrated with technology.
Q15. I am convinced that students learn and understand more about science when beliefs, and practices related to
the community are integrated with technology.
Q16. I am confident that I have the needed knowledge of my science contents in order for me to choose
appropriate technology to use in my science class four weeks ago.
Q17. I am confident that I have the needed knowledge of my science contents in order for me to choose
appropriate technology to use in my science class last year.
Q18. I am confident that I have the needed knowledge of different science teaching strategies in relation to any
science content four weeks ago.
science content last year.
science content along with the skills in choosing appropriate technology for my science class four weeks ago.
science content along with the skills in choosing appropriate technology for my science class last year.
Table 9: 21 Likert-type Items from the Questionnaire

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Demographic (D) Profiles
D1. I belong to the Schools Division of _____.

D2. I am teaching _____ (subject/s) (tick all that apply) for (please write the number of years in the box) _____.
General Science Earth Science Biology Chemistry Physics
D3. My bachelor's degree is in _____.
Education Others _____.
D4. My master's degree is in _____.
Education Others _____.
D5. I have not graduated yet but have earned units leading to master's degree in _____.
D6. Someone defined technology as "crossing the river without getting my feet wet". Others described
technology by citing the efficiency of MS Excel in computing for students' grades. As a science teacher, how do
you define technology?
D7. Do you have Internet connection provided by the school for science class use?
Yes No. I am using my personal data subscription Others/comments.
D8. Do you use a laptop in your science class?
Yes No
D9. Use of laptop in science class: Which one did you do most frequently for the last four weeks?
To show a video about a science concept, through online link or power point
Others
D10. Use of laptop in science class? Which one did you do least frequently for the last four weeks?
To show a video about a science concept, through online link or power point
Others
D11. What specific trainings on the use of technology that you think are more appropriate in your science class
now? Multiple answers allowed.
Bridging teaching strategies using online resources and students’ local context
Connecting multimedia – TV monitor, projector, computer, printer
Creating multimedia presentations – power point, video
Choosing the best science teaching resources online
Developing multimedia presentation skills
Others
D12. What difficulties have you faced when you use any technology in your science class for the last four
weeks? Multiple answers allowed.
Not confident enough if I have used, demonstrated, and explained such technology correctly
No available staff, colleague to assist in cases such technology malfunctions
Not convinced if such technology were appropriate for a given science topic
Not completely functional or working, defective, old
Limited availability, not enough for the class
Limited knowledge to troubleshoot
No or slow Internet connection
D13. What were the ideas, concepts, beliefs, and practices related to the community, students, students’ families,
students’ history and culture, etc. that you have used in your science class inside and outside the classroom to
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help students understand or appreciate science concepts and theories for the last two grading periods? Multiple
answers allowed.
Parents’, grandparents’ and elder people’s experience and wisdom
Religious symbols, beliefs and practices – fiesta, festivities, etc.
Professions, jobs, hobbies within the barangay/community
Lands, rivers, seas, mountains, hills, landscapes, etc.
Local and indigenous music, news, sports, arts
Local agriculture, fishing, business practices
Gender, marriage, religion, laws
D14. What difficulties have you faced when you use any of the ideas, concepts, beliefs, and practices related to
the community, students, students’ families, students’ history and culture, etc. in your science class for the last
two grading periods? Multiple answers allowed.
Not confident enough if I have used, demonstrated, explained such ideas and concepts correctly
Not convinced if such ideas and concepts made students learn or understand science
Not confident enough if such ideas and concepts were relevant and proper to use
Not motivated to use such ideas and concepts
Not enough time for one period and class
D15. Are you interested to be contacted via Messenger, WhatsApp, or Skype if I have some questions or
clarifications about your answers in this survey? You will receive 300 pesos as a professional honorarium for
45-60 minutes of interview.
Table 10: 15 Open-ended and Multiple Choice Items from the Questionnaire
4.1.1 Descriptive Statistics
This section describes the profile of public junior high school science teachers who voluntarily
completed the questionnaire. The analysis was based on the answers to all 14 questions under the
Demographic Profile section of the questionnaire.
4.1.1.1 Distribution of Science Teachers
There were 141 science teachers who completed the questionnaire. They were from 15 of the 20
school divisions comprising DepEd Region VI, Western Visayas (Figure 7). Each division was
marked by a star. The teachers from the Division of Bago City, marked below by a circle, were
the primary focus of this study and had the highest participation rate at 39. They were followed
by the Divisions of Cadiz City at 25 and Iloilo Province at 21, respectively (Figure 8).
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Figure 7: Locations of Teacher-Participants in Region VI (adapted from Google Maps, 2019)
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Figure 8: Distribution of Teacher-Participants in Region VI
4.1.1.2 Subjects Taught and Number of Years
In the new DepEd K-12 curriculum, junior high school science teachers teach other core science
subjects (biology, chemistry, and physics) in addition to their own specialization. At any given
grade level from Grade 7–10, a science teacher teaches any science subjects in a spiral
progressive manner (SEAMEO, 2012). Of the 141 science teachers, 89 were teaching physics.
Moreover, regardless of the subjects taught, most of the teachers were in their early years of
teaching. Figure 9 shows that the overwhelming majority of teachers were in their 1st to 3rd year
of teaching experience, followed by those in their 4th–6th year, and a handful in their 11th year
and upward.
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Figure 9: Subjects Taught and Years of Teaching Experience
4.1.1.3 Science Teachers’ Preparation
As regards degree preparation, Figure 10A shows that nearly 80% of the 141 teachers have
completed their bachelor’s degree in education. As well, Figure 10B shows that more than 75%
of the teachers have master’s degree in education. Teachers with non-education bachelor’s
degrees were graduates of nursing and computer science programs. Teachers with non-education
master’s degrees were graduates of public administration, management, and industrial
technology programs.
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Bachelor's Degree Preparation
Master's Degree Preparation
120 114 120
109
100 100
80 80
No. of Teachers
No. of Teachers
60
60
40 32
40
27
20
20
0
0 Master's in Education Master's Outside Educ.
Bachelor's in Education Bachelor's Outside Educ. Master's Degree
Bachelor's Degree
Figure 10: Bachelor’s (A) and Master’s (B) Degrees Holders
4.1.1.4 Internet Accessibility and Laptop Use
Based on Figure 11, around 20 teachers have Internet access provided by the school for their
science classes, while almost 100 teachers accessed it through their personal data subscriptions.
Other teachers had Internet access at home or in their faculty room, computer room, or specified
offices.
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Figure 11: Internet Access for Science Class
In terms of laptop ownership, Figure 12 shows that the vast majority of teachers had their own
laptops and used them in their science classes. In terms of laptop use, Figure 13 shows that the
use of videos is widely observed among science teachers, followed by the use of diagrams and
pictures.
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Figure 12: Laptop Ownership
Figure 13: Laptop Use in Science Class
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Meanwhile, a large number of teachers enumerated the difficulties they encountered specifically
in using laptops in their classes. Their topmost challenge was that there was either a slow
Internet connection or none at all. The rest of the list is shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14: Difficulties When Using a Laptop
Science teachers were asked about what specific training on the use of technology would be
appropriate for their science classes. The two most common suggestions by teachers were: (1)
what and how teaching strategy could bridge online resources in science and students’ local
contexts and (2) how to create multimedia presentations like PowerPoint and video (Figure 15).
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They also suggested skill building related to how to search for and choose the best science
teaching resources online and develop effective multimedia presentations.

Number of Teachers
Suggested Trainings
Figure 15: Suggested ICT Training
4.1.1.5 Use of Funds of Knowledge (FoK) in Science
When the science teachers were asked for the types of FoK they introduced in their science
classes, local geography topped the list at 99 teachers (Figure 16). For example, in Earth and
General Science, teachers used local geography to discuss earthquakes, fault lines, types of
volcanoes. This was followed by local agriculture and beliefs of parents and elders in the
community at 77 and 63 teachers, respectively. On the other hand, more than 100 teachers
strongly cited limited time as the topmost reason for not using FoK in their science classes. A
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considerable number of them also cited reasons like FoK’s connection and relevance to science
and their own confidence and motivation (Figure 17).
Figure 16: Funds of Knowledge Used in Science
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Figure 17: Reluctance in Using Funds of Knowledge Used in Science
4.1.1.6 Teachers’ Views of Technology
As a general term and in relation to science teaching, technology was coded as defined by the
majority of teachers as an “application” of science and knowledge (Figure 18) without any strong
reference to teaching and learning. By contrast, the second most popular definition was more
indicative of teachers’ positive beliefs and attitudes regarding the potential of ICT to improve
learning. This definition was coded as a “bridge to understanding.” Examples of teachers’
definitions include a “modern and easy step in teaching,” “makes a big difference in the
teaching-learning process,” an “aid for better scientific-inquiry,” helping to “better explain the
abstract concepts,” “partner of teachers in education,” etc. The next three popular definitions
coded as “tool,” “convenience,” and “efficiency” further support teachers’ optimistic outlook on
the educational value of ICT.
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Figure 18: Teachers’ Views of Technology
4.1.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): Emergent Themes
EFA is a well-known technique (Cudeck & MacCallum, 2007) in behavioral science research to
display how each factor in the study relates to the others. In this study, it was used to explore the
existing factors (latent variables) surrounding the challenges of science teachers as they use ICT.
The challenges faced by the science teachers were extracted into emerging themes by identifying
and determining the common factors (latent variables) from a “large amount of data in individual
variables and coalesce[ing] it into related groupings so that more general trends in the data can
be explored” (Emerson, 2017, p. 302). Moreover, employing EFA to studies which are in their
early stages of development, like this current study, is “particularly appropriate for scale
development where little theoretical basis exists for specifying the number and patterns of
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common factors” (Gordon & Courtney, 2013, p. 1). Statisticians and researchers alike understand
that it is highly essential to obtain an appropriate number of factors. Thus, the manner by which
factors are extracted and retained will have absolute consequences for attempts to introduce and
develop new theoretical propositions (Gordon & Courtney, 2013).
In this study, multiple approaches were used to determine and retain the number of factors as
recommended by experts (Gorsuch, 1983; Zwick & Velicer, 1986; Velicer, Eaton, & Fava, 2000;
Hayton, Allen, & Scarpello, 2004). All computations except those specified were done using
SPSS version 23. Each approach was described and the corresponding result was provided. Then,
the final number of factors was determined from the combination of individual results.
Afterward, the factors retained were explained conceptually and analytically while the research
questions were kept in mind. However, even if the final number of factors retained through EFA
is an empirical and unique product of “mechanics and mathematics of the method” (Kieffer,
1999, p. 77), “It is we who create meanings for things in deciding how they are to be used”
(Mulaik, 1987, p. 301). Furthermore, Thompson and Daniel (1996) remind us that “analytic
results can inform the definitions we wish to create, even though we remain responsible for our
elaborations and may even wish to retain the definitions that have not yet been empirically
supported or that limited empirical evidence may even contradict” (p. 202).
4.1.2.1 Tests for Data Suitability: KMO and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity
These tests detect the structure of variance and eligibility of the data for EFA (KMO, 2019).
These tests are computed before employing different methods to extract the number of factors
from within the data of the study.
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Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO)
KMO is a proportion of shared variance among variables. High values close to 1.0 indicate
higher suitability for EFA. A data with a KMO value of lower than 0.50 will not yield a useful
EFA (KMO, 2019). The computed value for this study is 0.712.
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity
Bartlett’s test of sphericity, on the other hand, is an identity matrix that suggests whether latent
variables in the data are suitable or not for EFA. Sphericity at less than 0.05 of the significance
level indicates suitability for EFA (KMO, 2019). The computed value for this study is p<0.001.
The computed values for KMO and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (Table 11) show that the data
from this study is suitable for EFA.
KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of
0.712
Sampling Adequacy
Bartlett's Test of Approx. Chi-
1406.138
Sphericity Square
df 210
Sig. .000
Table 11: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartlett’s Test
4.1.2.2 Multiple Methods to Extract the Number of Factors
Kaiser’s Eigenvalue-greater-than-one-rule
Kaiser (1960) proposed that only factors with eigenvalues greater than one should be retained.
This is a default setting in IBM SPSS for EFA. The computed eigenvalues for this data were
taken from two extraction methods: Maximum Likelihood and Principal Axis Factoring.
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Maximum Likelihood
This extraction method defines “a set of parameter estimates for a model that are most likely to
produce the observed data” (Fabrigar & Kan, 2018, p. 6). The assumption of this method
matches the nature of the data gathered in this study, since they are “a random sample drawn
from some defined population and…the measured variables have a multivariate normal
distribution” (Fabrigar & Kan, 2018, p. 6). Maximum Likelihood was extracted using Oblimin
with the Kaiser normalization rotation method, which falls under an oblique rotation type. This
kind of rotation was used with the assumption that the variables in the data correlate with one
another (Henson & Robert, 2006). All extractions for the 21-item (variable) questionnaire in this
study were done using oblique rotation set at 100 iterations. As seen below (Table 12), the
computation resulted in six factors with eigenvalues > 1. At this preliminary stage, each factor
was linked to individual Likert-type items found in Table 9. These items linked into individual
factors (generating six separate factors) as they were correlated to one another. As seen in later
stage, these individual Likert-type items will further converge into factors fewer than six.
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Table 12: Eigenvalues Extracted Using Maximum Likelihood
Principal Axis Factoring
Principal Axis Factoring extracts common variance from sets of variables from the sets of matrix
association in the data (Henson & Roberts, 2006). The extraction was done using Oblimin with
the Kaiser normalization rotation method. Similar to Maximum Likelihood extraction, Principal
Axis Factoring generated six factors with identical eigenvalues > 1 (Table 13).
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Table 13: Eigenvalues Extracted Using Principal Axis Factoring
Cattell’s Scree Test
Cattell (1966) introduced the Scree test of computed eigenvalues from a matrix of association.
Eigenvalues are plotted in descending order. The plot looks like a cliff and the number of factors
to be retained is done by visual inspection. All eigenvalues that link up to the last eigenvalue,
which represents the significant drop in the cliff or “scree” in the graph, represent the factors to
be retained.
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The Scree plot generated in this study, as plotted from the identical eigenvalues for both
Maximum Likelihood and Principal Axis Factoring, is shown below (Figure 19). The 6th factor
in the Factor Number axis seemingly represents the scree of the graph. The 7th factor has an
eigenvalue < 1 and so was not included. All the points starting from the cliff or “scree” upward
were the factors retained, and there were six of them.
Figure 19: Scree Plot for Six Eigenvalues > 1
Velicer’s Minimum Average Partial Test
Velicer’s (1976) and Zwick & Velicer’s (1986) Minimum Average Partial Test is a parallel
analysis used to compare with Maximum Likelihood, Principal Axis Factoring and other
extraction methods in order to assist in the empirical determination of the number of factors to be
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retained. It is “among the most accurate methods for determining the number of factors, most
authors failed to use…” (Henson & Roberts, 2006, p. 407). It lowers the number of variables to
smaller number of components and links them from the analysis of the matrix of association
(Velicer, 1976). The computation of Velicer’s Minimum Average Partial Test was done using
O’Connor’s (2000) syntax codes performed in SPSS version 23 with 1000 data set iterations.
Based on Velicer’s Minimum Average Partial Test, the smallest average squared partial
correlation is 0.0532. The smallest average 4th power partial correlation is 0.0086, and the
number of components according to the original (1976) Minimum Average Partial Test is three.
Moreover, the number of components according to the revised (2000) Velicer’s Minimum
Average Partial Test is also three (Table 14). Thus, three factors were retained.
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Table 14: Factor extraction using Velicer’s Minimum Average Partial Test
Horn’s Parallel Analysis
Horn’s Parallel Analysis generates a large number of data matrices from randomized data
parallel with the real data from some defined population (Gordon & Courtney, 2013). The
matrices of factors from real data with eigenvalues > than the mean eigenvalue were generated
from random data matrices. Gordon & Courtney (2013) describe Horn’s PA, an alternative to
eigenvalue-greater-than-one, as one of the most strongly recommended techniques (Zwick &
Velicer, 1986; Fabrigar et al., 1999; Velicer, Eaton, & Fava, 2000; Hayton, Allen, & Scarpello,
2004; Henson & Roberts, 2006; Ruscio & Roche, 2012). The computation was done using
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O’Connor’s (2000) syntax codes performed in SPSS version 23 with 1000 data set iterations.
Table 15 shows that the parallel analysis yielded three eigenvalues > 1.
Table 15: Factor Extraction Using Horn’s Parallel Analysis
4.1.3 Summarizing EFA: Determining the Final Number of Factors
Below (Table 16) is the summary of extraction methods and the corresponding eigenvalues.
Maximum Likelihood & Principal Axis Factoring generated six identical eigenvalues greater > 1.
These eigenvalues represented the number of factors to be retained. Cattell’s scree plot test also
gave six eigenvalues greater > 1 but recommended three factors to retain. However, Horn’s
Parallel Analysis generated three eigenvalues > 1 and set that number as the number of factors to
be retained.
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Eigenvalue : Actual Data Parallel Analysis
Velicer's
Maximum Principal Axis Horn's Parallel
Factor Minimum Ave.
Likelihood Factoring Analysis
Partial Test
1 7.292 7.292 2.065 7.292
2 3.201 3.201 2.015 3.201
3 2.037 2.037 1.990 2.037
4 1.603 1.603 0.577 1.603
5 1.264 1.264 0.521 1.264
6 1.027 1.027 0.503 1.027
Table 16: Summary of Extraction Methods to Determine the Number of Factors to Retain
By plotting the data from the above table using scree plot test (Figure 20), the 3rd factor from
actual data was found to be the scree of the graph. There were three factors counted from the
scree point and upward. These three factors closely aligned with a three-factor variable from
Velicer’s Minimum Average Partial Test and Horn’s Partial Analysis. Thus, these three factors
were identified as the emerging factors and were chosen for retention.
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Actual data: Max. Likelihood & Principal Axis Factoring &
Velicer’s Minimum Ave. Partial Test
Figure 20: Scree Plot of Combined Extracted Methods
Table 17 shows pattern matrices from two- to five-factor constructs (a–d). The data from the
pattern matrices were used to reproduce the common variables that interlink with each other.
Particularly for Direct Oblimin, the pattern matrix provides simplification for how factor patterns
form with interlinked variables (Gorsuch, 1983). Following Gorsuch (1983), the simplified and
interlinked factors (variables) were more visible with a pattern matrix of the three-factor
construct (Table 17b) than the rest of the matrices. Moreover, the number of variables
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converging in each individual factor matched with the three-factor construct in Table 17b. For
example, the variables or items Q5-Q13 in the questionnaire converged together in Factor 2
under the three-factor construct (as also seen in Figure 21), whereas these items do not converge
in the rest of the constructs. Likewise, the pattern matrix for the three-factor construct is similar
to the rest of the constructs which have similar factor loadings greater than 0.2 degree factor
loadings. This provided further confirmation for retaining the three-factor construct for EFA.
a) b)
Table 17: Pattern Matrices for 1-3 (a-b) Factor Constructs
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c) d)
Table 18: Pattern Matrices for 4-5 (c-d) Factor Constructs
In addition, the pattern matrix for the three-factor construct retained from EFA has factor
loadings higher than 0.30 (Table 18). Factor loadings from 0.30 and higher are considered
significant (Gorsuch, 1983; Lichtenberger et al., 2017).
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Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3
Rotated Rotated Rotated
Item Factor Item Factor Item Factor
Loading Loading Loading
Q16 0.827 Q5 0.434 Q1 0.596
Q17 0.877 Q6 0.549 Q2 0.514
Q18 0.853 Q7 0.491 Q3 0.472
Q19 0.811 Q8 0.699 Q4 0.584
Q20 0.705 Q9 0.846 Q14 0.713
Q21 0.765 Q10 0.881 Q15 0.693
Q11 0.560
Q12 0.721
Q13 0.730
Table 19: Factor Loadings for a Three-factor Construct
4.1.4 Conceptualizing the Three Emergent Themes
Figure 21 shows the conceptualization of the three-factor construct following agreement among
multiple EFA extraction methods. The figure shows that the three factor variables are the
emergent themes. These “themes” were conceptualized based on the combination of themes
(further left) attached to the groupings of individual Likert-type “items” interlinked with the
degree of “factor loadings” and “factors” (further right). Each factor represents one emergent
theme. All items have loadings above 0.30. Loadings above 0.30 are considered to be significant.
The solid lines with different thicknesses indicate the degree of significance of factor loadings
ranging from 0.40–0.90. Thicker lines mean higher significance of factor loadings.
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Themes Items Factor Loadings Factors
Figure 21: Factor Loadings with Corresponding conceptualization of Themes and Items
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The three factors retained as explained above were now renamed as the three emergent and big
themes (Table 19). They were teachers’ TPACK, administrative support and professional
development, and FoK, respectively. These factors stemmed from 13 overlapping sub-themes
embedded in the 21-item questionnaire as summarized below. TPACK, containing five sub-
themes, was now conceptualized as having the components of technology, pedagogy, content
knowledge of science teachers, and their confidence, beliefs, and attitudes toward ICT
integration in science class. These five sub-themes were conceptually interpreted based on the
contents and themes projected by question items (Q16–21). For example, question items nos. 16,
18, and 20 asked for teachers’ confidence in having technology and pedagogical content
knowledge to use technology in their science class over the four weeks. Question item nos. 17,
19, and 21 had the same theme as that of questions 16, 18, and 20 but pertained to the period
covered a year ago. Administrative support contained four sub-themes identified as professional
development, policy, administrative support, and appropriate resources. These sub-themes were
conceptualized from question item nos. 5–13. For example, using question nos. 5–7, teachers
were asked to recall if ICT trainings from division, regional, and national levels implemented in
their school were useful and relevant in science. For the third emergent theme, FoK contained
four sub-themes which included digital divide, local knowledge, community, and curriculum.
These sub-themes were generated using the contents found in question item nos. 1–4 and 14–15.
For example, item nos. 14–15 asked science teachers whether or not they are convinced that
students learn more about science if funds of knowledge are integrated with technology.
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Emerging 3 Factor- 13 Themes Conceptual Interpretations
Theme
1. TPACK Technology Purposeful and deliberate use of technology,
technology is understood as ICT and further
specified only as laptop, LED TV, quality
science textbooks and references,
science laboratory equipment and materials
Pedagogy Techniques and methods in teaching science contents
Content Understanding the underlying concepts,
principles, and theories in science
Confidence Self-reported attitude of relying on one's teaching
experience and expertise
Beliefs and attitudes Self-reported tendency to value positively

or negatively ICT as used for instruction
2. Administrative PD Series of workshops, seminars and
Support & PD trainings to update content and
pedagogical knowledge, and use of ICT
Policy Government directives, orders, and regulations
regarding ICT initiatives in public schools
Admin. Support Division and school level support for teachers
in the provision of appropriate ICT
resources for teaching
Appropriate Noting on the current infrastructures in public
Resources and rural schools, teachers wish
for the appropriateness and usability
rather than just the availability of resources
3. FoK Digital Divide The gap on exposure and utilization of ICT
between teachers, students, and their community
Local knowledge The existing practices, values, wisdom and
culture lived by the students, teachers,
and all members of the community
Community A collaborative and inter-connected group
(students, teachers, neighbors) living in one
sphere of influence
Curriculum Pertains to the new K-12 curriculum
where junior high school teachers
teach other core science subjects outside their expertise
Table 20: Retained Three-factor Construct and its Conceptual Description
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Summary of Key Findings
Using descriptive statistical analysis for questions on the teachers’ demographic profile (Table
10) and exploratory factor analysis for questions related to challenges and experiences (Table 9),
the following findings were generated:
(1) There were 141 public junior high school teachers in Region 6 who responded to the
online survey. In terms of division level participation, Bago City, the central focus of this
study, had 39 of its 45 science teachers volunteer to join with an 87% participation rate.
Overall, 96% of the teachers owned a laptop and 81% did not have adequate Internet
access. Most of the teachers (75%) used their laptop for video and PowerPoint
presentations and nearly 72% (the highest for the group) suggested that they needed skills
to create multimedia presentations. The top three FoK themes used by the teachers in
their science classes were local geography, agriculture, and elders’ beliefs including
superstitious beliefs.
(2) There were three emergent themes (also called the three-factor constructs) identified:
TPACK, administrative support and PD, and FoK. Science teachers’ TPACK was
conceptualized as including not only components of technology, content, and pedagogy
but also teachers’ confidence, beliefs, and attitudes toward ICT integration in science
class. Administrative support and PD contained four sub-themes of policy, appropriate
resources, and administrative support and PD. The third emergent theme was FoK. It
contained four sub-themes of digital divide, local knowledge, community, and
curriculum. All factor loadings for all the items used for the three-factor constructs
ranged from 0.45–0.90. This range was considered significant to highly significant since
factor loadings higher than 0.3 were considered significant (Lichtenberger et al., 2017).
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In other words, each of the three-factor constructs was closely associated with every sub-
themes and group of items converging to it, respectively.
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Chapter 5: Qualitative Data Analyses
The qualitative analysis in this section is not a separate analysis of separate qualitative data
coming from one-on-one interviews, five focus group interviews, and written observations and
reflections in nine science video-creation workshops. Rather, these qualitative data were
examined and coded as dictated by the three emergent themes (TPACK, administrative support
& PD, and FoK) generated by EFA and described in the previous chapter. In other words, this
section is an extended analysis which principally connects to the quantitative analyses in the
previous chapter with the main guiding question: How do the three EFA-generated and emergent
themes manifest in the science teacher-participants’ one-on-one interviews, focus groups, field
notes and memos, and written observations and reflections in science video-creation workshops?
5.1.1 Thematic Analysis: Emergent Themes
As a brief review, thematic analysis is a method for “identifying themes and patterns of meaning
across a dataset in relation to a research question” (Braun & Clarke, 2013, p. 175). It is also a
“process of analyzing data according to commonalities, relationships, and differences across a
data set” (Gibson & Brown, 2009, p. 127). The process of looking and naming the themes across
qualitative data sets in this study, pre-imposed by the EFA-generated themes, is viewed through
the lenses of TPACK and FoK. The themes were generated using Corbin & Strauss’s (2008)
open-axial-selective coding. The reviews were conducted using NVivo’s (Jackson & Bazeley,
2019) visualization methods like exploring and comparing diagrams, coding density strips, and
word trees. Then, the themes and their narratives were approved by my supervisors, Dr. Milner-
Bolotin and Dr. Nashon, two members of my three-member PhD Committee.
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The open coding generated 20 themes with varying degrees of transcript files and number of
references from transcript files attributed to them (Figure 22). The most referenced theme was
“resourcefulness and creativity” with 60 transcript references linked to seven transcript files. The
least referenced theme was “competitiveness with private education” with three transcript
references linked to one transcript file. I identified the top nine themes based on the number of
files and references attributed to them with corresponding memos and field notes. The top nine
enclosed in a box were themes from “professional development” down to “resourcefulness and
creativity.”
Figure 22: 20 Generated Themes from Open Coding Step
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During the axial coding, the 20 themes were collapsed into five big themes. Further inspection of
the five big themes and their sub-components reduced them into four themes (selective coding)
(Figure 23). (Note: selfesness should had been written as selflessness)
Figure 23: Emergent Themes after Axial and Selective Coding
I reviewed the four themes using NVivo visualization methods: exploring and comparing
diagrams, and degree of coding strips. These visualization techniques complemented the existing
underlying data sets from the transcripts. By looking into the hierarchical relationship of
“enablers” and “resourcefulness and creativity” using coding density strips, one can see that the
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sub-themes under “resourcefulness and creativity” and individual themes like “content,”
“pedagogy,” and “self-sacrifice and selflessness” were also coded under “enablers” (Figure 24).
This provided one justification for me to attach “resourcefulness and creativity” under
“enablers.”
Figure 24: Visualizing using NVivo Coding Strips
Moreover, by connecting “enablers” and “resourcefulness and creativity” through a NVivo
diagram (Figure 25), it can be seen that a considerable number of transcript files were connected
to both big themes. These memos hinted at propositions that the limited availability of ICT
resources compelled teachers to be resourceful.
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Figure 25: Visualizing using NVivo Diagram
Lastly, a detailed examination using the NVivo Explore Diagram showed that all the four
emerging themes (with a star inside a blue circle) and their sub-themes were contained in one
specific transcript file (Figure 26). This transcript file discussed several issues related to the
challenges and experiences of science teachers in the use of technology, professional
development, school and community support, etc. Evidently in this one day of interview and
focus group sessions, the diagram indicated that most of the sub-themes were converging toward
“enabler.” This was followed by a tie between “policy and governance” and “affordance of
available technology,” while the least number of sub-themes was merging under “FoK.”
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Figure 26: Visualizing the Four Emergent Themes and their Child Themes
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5.1.2 Conceptual Interpretations: Emerging Themes
My physics class is more than just using a laptop and LED TV. I can still manage to use a
Manila paper and post it on the wall.
Ms. A (Transcript 23/55, Dec. 12, 2018)
Four out of the 20 initial themes were named as emergent themes. These are:
1. Enablers
2. FoK
3. Policy and governance
4. Affordance of available technology
Theme 1: Enablers
This study adopted Campbell’s (2018) and Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) (Enable, 2019)
definitions of enable to frame the theme “Enablers’. In the context of democracy, an enabler is
someone who encourages, innovates, and drives the quality of democracy (Campbell, 2018). To
enable is equivalent “to giv[ing] power to (a person); to strengthen, make adequate or proficient,
or to make competent or capable” (Enable, 2019). For example, enable was used in the sentence
from H. Lawrence of Communion & Warre with Angels’ (1646) as “It was all that Alexander
had to inable [enable] him to conquest the world”. Enable was used in a much earlier entry in
1581 from R. Mulcaster Positions xli suggesting “Exercise to enable the body”.
Applying the definitions of the verb to enable as mentioned above, OED defined enabler as the
one who enables. In one of the entries from W. Sclater Expos.1 Thess. in the year 1630, it
proclaimed that “God, the onely enabler to so great performances” (Enabler, 2019). However, a
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negative connotation of the term enabler exists by describing someone who intentionally or
unintentionally encourages or enables negative or self-destructive behaviour in another (Enabler,
2019). The earliest example provided by OED was an entry from the Los Angeles Times in 1979
stating “Don’t be an enabler. That’s an Alcoholics Anonymous word for someone who helps
instead of hindering the drinker”
Drawing on the positive meanings of enable and enabler, the sub-themes like “resourcefulness
and creativity,” “openness and less reluctance,” “pedagogy,” etc. were descriptions of science
teachers as encouraging, competent, and empowering as manifested through their actions,
activities, and ideas implying a possibility for a thing or situation to happen despite difficulties
and limitations in integrating technology in their science classes. These manifestations were
coded as “enablers.” This emergent theme was coded the highest along with “resourcefulness
and creativity” 60 times and referenced in eight transcript files (Figure 27a). Including child
nodes, the individual themes such as “pedagogy” and “content” occupied significant places
relative to other themes like “self-sacrifice and selflessness” and “openness and less reluctance”
when visualized using a hierarchical view (Figure 27b).
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a) Detailed
Listing
b) Hierarchical View
Figure 27: Visualizing using NVivo’s Detailed Listing and Hierarchical View
“Enabler” as an emergent theme stood as powerful description of the collective experiences of
rural junior high school science teachers as they integrated technology in their science classes.
Common among science teachers in a school or department or as individual teachers, “enabler”
as an activity, idea, or action demonstrated the attempts of these science teachers in the rural
areas to advance their TPACK.
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The table below (Table 20) provides several examples of enabling ideas and practices while
further examples of unique initiatives from individual science teachers included the following:
(1) Contacting former students, alumni, and parent-teacher associations for donations to purchase
LED TVs and fund other necessary classroom renovations (e.g., classroom toilet, floors, or
windows). Ms. A liked discussing physics principles with the use of videos with animations she
pre-searched at home and projected from her laptop to the LED TV. Besides using the TV as a
projector, she also used it for her PowerPoint presentations and short quizzes. Moreover, rather
than spending hours making an illustration of a cell on Manila paper, she can now annotate a
downloaded visual aid of a cell online.
(2) Providing one USB portable drive to each student leader in a group for projects and
enrichment activities. Students in a group brainstorm the appropriate content needed for the
activity or assignment, then use an Internet café outside the school or in a nearby city to gather
content online. They then submit their USB drive back to the teacher. This is another unique use
of a USB portable drive in rural schools, according to Ms. I. Since students do not have enough
money to spend on photocopying, the USB is now used to save science activities and student
research so Ms. I can conveniently access them on her laptop.
(3) Inviting resource persons in the community to talk in their science classes (e.g., farmers,
poultry owners). Ms. G realized that some concepts in biology can best be learned by having an
expert talk to students face-to-face rather than by using a video or PowerPoint presentation.
(4) Using local and native fruits and plants as a model for body organs. Visual aids can be
downloaded online, but Ms. D emphasized that she also uses local plants as a substitute for
digital photos to model or explain a science concept.
(5) Printing activity materials at home in advance for each group of students in the class.
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(6) Using empty condiment bottles as improvised beakers and test tubes.
(7) Bringing local plants and fruits into the class to test them as either acids and bases instead of
using litmus paper, which evidently the school does not have.
Difficulties/Issues Enabler: Idea, action, activity, person

No photocopying machine Science department holds "Science Beauty Pageant"
* Tickets were sold to students, parents, and the community
* Proceeds were used to purchase second-hand copier machine
* Teachers accept requests for photocopying services (for
payments) from students, teachers, and staff in the school.
* Proceeds are used to buy science instructional materials e.g. LED
TV monitor
One LED TV for the whole Science Dept. Exchange of classroom
* To minimize movements and damage, LED TV is placed
stationary in one classroom
* Teacher arranges with the other teacher to use TV in advance
* If they will use at the same time, they exchange classrooms
* During students’ movement, questions are given out for
students to discuss with a pair to minimize loss of instruction time
Creating improvised Department Room Construction of an improvised structure
* Teachers needed one common place where they can huddle
* A room where they can conveniently exchange ideas, teaching
strategies, etc.
Teaching expertise needed Resource persons
* Science teachers were not expert in some other science core
subjects, so they requested one another to be a speaker or
guest lecturer in their class
Promote interdisciplinary skills of students Scilympics
* Science department joined Science Olympics (Scilympics)
to support students in looking for ideas for song entries
* Integrated dances, choreography, science concepts, and music
Table 21: Examples of Teacher Difficulties and Their Enabling Actions
Interestingly, the teachers shared the above enabling ideas through storytelling and classroom
anecdotes rather than a typical interview where the interviewee enumerates the answers to the
interviewer’s point by point. Teachers’ methods of responding to questions helped contextualize
the interviews in a particular way for both interviewer and interviewee. As a social practice, we
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were equally able to see the process as a co-construction of knowledge and not as a process of
merely accessing or providing knowledge. This aligns with Talmy’s (2010) claim in reference to
Holstein and Gubrium (2003) that when interviews are viewed as a social practice, the
interviewer-interviewee becomes a co-creator of knowledge. Similarly, I deliberately looked at
science teachers as research participants and subjects (noting my own identity shifting from
insider and outsider status to a space in-between) and not as respondents. Through the
acknowledgment of teachers as collaborators and co-creators of knowledge, interview transcripts
were transformed into voices of experience and expertise. Several teachers narrated how they
were becoming resourceful and creative in preparing and delivering their lessons despite limited
or no availability of ICT-based teaching resources. For instance, a group of science teachers
bought a pocket Wi-fi or dongle pre-paid Internet device for their science classes. They took
turns in reloading data to the device using their own money. Ms. A explained how fellow
teachers improvise with a limited Internet connection in school:
Most of the time we have our classes in classrooms adjacent to one another, so we can
easily share Internet access… But we could not completely rely on the Internet
connection via a dongle. That is why my physics class is more than just using a laptop
and LED TV or Internet. I can still manage to use a Manila paper and post it on the
wall… With limited technical or professional support, sometimes teaching boils down
to what we call diskarte [teacher’s craftmanship and strategy].
In Ms. B’s school, science teachers use tarpapel. It is a combination of the word tarpaulin (tar)
and papel, which is a Filipino term for paper. It is a low-cost alternative to tarpaulin for
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classroom visual aids. “It is easy to prepare and print besides being environment friendly, cheap,
and more appropriate for short term use,” Ms. B suggested.
During regular class days, in Ms. B’s school, a remote public school overlooking the majestic
peak of Mt. Kanlaon, one science teacher might be at the kitchen preparing lunch for everyone
while the other is photocopying class notes for students. Teachers usually take turns bringing
goods and ingredients for lunch, and the earnings they get from photocopying (from students and
colleagues) is their source of funds for science instructional materials. The science department
head, Ms. C, revealed:
We collected proceeds from ticket sales during our “Science Beauty Pageant” and we
used them to purchase a second-hand photocopier. With the machine, we generate extra
source of funding that later on might afford us to buy quality reference books and
additional LED TV.
These teachers decided to stay in an improvised, temporary bamboo structure attached to the end
of a classroom as a science department faculty room. It is an open structure with a roof. The
walls are made of strips of crisscrossed bamboo. Students looking for their teacher just need to
stand outside and call out; they do not need to enter the room. Seven science teachers including
the department head share the room, which is approximately 6x10 meters. It has a small kitchen
and two connected tables made of bamboo at the center of the room for meals and meetings
besides teachers’ individual working tables and second-hand copier machine. The room is
packed with seven teachers all sitting with their laptops, notes, test papers, etc. However, they
would rather stay here where they can always gather rather than being alone in their classrooms.
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In the words of Ms. C, the department head, it is “a place where they can harmoniously live and
work like home and allow each one to grow as a community of professionals.”
Some creative ideas by teachers like Ms. A, who started using an LED TV monitor to connect
with her laptop instead of a projector, have been replicated by other science teachers. In Ms. A’s
school there are now three classrooms that have mounted TV screens on their walls and more
science teachers are looking for funds to buy LED TVs as well. The enabling actions of the
science teachers to improve science teaching and learning in rural schools were manifestations of
their resourcefulness, creativity, self-sacrifice, openness, and selflessness.
Theme 2: Funds of Knowledge (FoK)
FoK as contextualized in education (Gonzalez, 1995; Llopart & Esteban-Guitart, 2018) and
practiced by science teacher-participants was coded 54 times and referenced in seven transcript
files. It has two child nodes: “community collaboration” coded eight times from three transcript
files and “parent teacher engagement” coded four times from one transcript file (Figure 28).
Figure 28: Theme 2: Funds of Knowledge
Data from the interviews, focus groups, and science video-creation workshops from two separate
schools showed 51% (Figure 29) of the total transcripts from each school attributed to FoK
alone.
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Figure 29: Theme 2 “Funds of Knowledge as a Common Topic”
The majority of the teachers provided a list of reasons why they are integrating FoK in their
classes. Ms. D shared:
Our students know lots of ideas from abroad through social media platforms but missed
information within their community. So, when we use local knowledge in our science
class, they start to realize the value of their community, etc.
Ms. E agreed with Ms. D, recalling a recent incident in her class:
In order to provide [the students] some background about acid-base properties of
substances, I brought mayana leaves (scutellarioides). Students did not realize that
mayana can be used as an alternative for litmus paper.
Ms. D said that when she started to praise a student who told the class about their mayana plant,
two more students raised their hands and informed the class that they heard the Malabar spinach
they had at home could also be used as an alternative for litmus paper. “Whether it was true or
not, I sense that students are becoming receptive of sharing ideas and stories about home and
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family, and I am glad that they are learning science at the same time,” said Ms. D, assuring me
that her science class provides opportunities for students to connect with their community and
surroundings. This revelation from a science teacher like Ms. D indicated that students have
resources that can be used to motivate engagement and nurture learning in the class. Consistent
interactions of this kind in the classroom will create a bridge that fosters a mutual teacher and
learner relationship (Gonzalez & Moll, 2002).
For Ms. F, the use of FoK in her class allows students to quickly grasp some science concepts, as
she uses specific examples from the locality that students really know. “The pacing of discussion
is smooth and fast. You can touch more issues and topics related to one science concept because
they can make connections,” Ms. F enthusiastically explained. Expanding on this idea, Ms. G
stated:
Our city is rich in agriculture activities like rice farming. So, if we teach biology in
connection with rice farming to our students, then chances are these students might look
at their parents’ ordinary rice farm in a scientific perspective, for example, knowing the
advantages of using organic fertilizers. Then, science could be a meaningful subject for
the students.
Ms. A also shared some specific examples of how she used FoK, this time in conjunction with
the use of her laptop and new LED TV. “You see, this is my grandfather’s town. I can’t imagine
that it was that close to the epicentre of an earthquake!” one student exclaimed to her classmates,
pointing at a map projected on a TV monitor where three circles overlapped showing data plotted
from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs, 2019). “Immediately
after the three circles were drawn representing the three different locations where the earthquake
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was felt,” Ms. A proudly explained, “the students in the group started to retrace and identify the
towns in the circles affected by the earthquake using some clippings from a local newspaper.” In
the past, she stated, “I just hung an MP3 (a local curricular term describing Manila paper folded
in three parts) on the chalkboard and explained how data triangulation can be done to search the
location of an earthquake.” By contrast,
For the last two years, using an online resource and TV monitor as projector, I was able
to allow students to experience how to triangulate the data collaboratively. More
importantly, the students have expanded the activity by raising critical conversations
involving the structural integrity of local houses, their location relative to a known fault,
and the community’s sense of preparedness for natural calamities.
As regards natural calamities, Ms. H recalled that “if our lesson is about classifying volcanoes in
terms of their activity (active, dormant, or extinct), we don’t need to go far and cite world-
famous volcanoes but just glance at the volcano from the window of our classroom.” She
provided a fitting example:
Localization in science education means science literacy. Familiarization of their
surroundings is critical for their safety and survival. Our school might be within the
danger zone, and so when our students are already aware of the danger, they can respond
quickly and evacuate.
One last concrete example of integrating FoK into science class was given by Ms. I. She shared
an instance when she had asked her students for their ideas about comets. Confidently citing their
elders, students stated that the sighting of a comet with its tail pointing downward signifies a bad
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omen. When Ms. I asked them the scientific explanation for the occurrence of a comet, students
simply stared at her in silence. When she explained the natural and predictable occurrence of
comets, she noticed that students were seemingly unconvinced. In the latter part of our interview,
Ms. I tried to recall what she did in the class that day, exclaiming, “I should have shown some
diagrams or videos on how comets appear and disappear in the sky!” Ms. I’s reservations
regarding the use of FoK in science class echoed what I heard from other teacher-participants.
She said:
FoK bridges respect between teacher and students, school and community. It promotes
valuing of students’ and teachers’ identity… students’ science literacy and reasoning. The
downside is that, when students have high regard and respect with their elders, they’re not
inclined to consider other truths, like scientific beliefs.
FoK as a theme and as a teaching practice was widely visible among the science teachers in the
rural areas. However, the teachers rarely called it as FoK. The DepEd in the Philippines termed it
as contextualization, indigenization or localization. Regardless of differences on the use of
terminology, the teachers considered FoK as a bridge for science literacy, community
collaboration, and parent-teacher-student engagement.
Theme 3: Policy and Governance
Policy and governance as an emergent theme involved three child themes: professional
development, budgetary constraints, and competitiveness with private education (Figure 30).
This theme was defined as directives, executive orders, and initiatives from the national DepEd
level cascaded down to the classroom level. The theme also covers the wishes or perspectives of
science teacher-participants regarding professional development and training, limited ICT
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resources due to budget constraints, and the challenge of preparing rural public high school
students to be competitive with their counterparts in private schools.
Figure 30: Theme 3 “Policy and Governance”
Under this theme, Ms. A’s case resounded clearly. In her classroom, Ms. A has a wide flat screen
TV mounted on the wall connected to a laptop on her desk. One side of the room displays images
of her favorite Filipino and foreign scientists and physicists. When I visited her classroom, there
was big box on one side of the room. Seeing me glance at it, Ms. A proudly volunteered, “That
box was an old TV I bought but the one on the wall is the newest. That’s given to me by my
former advisory class as a birthday gift.” She explained why she initially decided to buy a LED
TV:
I stopped using a multimedia projector. Recently, the bulb was damaged. Too much
movement and transfer. Well, the bulb has expiration and there was no more replacement
provided by the department… [Using a TV instead] was very convenient, no more
advance requisition, and the time and energy I save in transporting the projector from the
office to my classroom and back is spent more with the students.
Ms. A revealed to me that she just started using a multimedia projector with a laptop in 2015.
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Though she is retiring in 2–3 years, she has a more demanding workload as a specialist for the
school’s special science classes. She is doing her best to prepare her students to be highly
capable and competitive when they reach college. With her new wide flat screen monitor
permanently fixed on the wall, she can maximize her time by concentrating more on designing
activities and reviewing her PowerPoint slides or online resources for her class. Some of her
colleagues, seeing the comfort and benefits of using an LED TV monitor compared to a projector
lamp, have gradually started following her practice. Ms. A’s case is an example of a teacher-
driven initiative born out of need rather than handed down as a government-wide initiative. As of
2019, no such government initiative had reached Ms. A’s school. She shared her perspective:
The technology I use in my science and physics class is just a tool that would bridge
learning between me and [students]. I just wish that ICT investments in public schools
should focus on teachers’ professional training more than delivering computers and
gadgets in schools for students.
Before 2015, Ms. A already had a desktop computer in her house. She used it to type up her
science activities and quizzes. Besides attending ICT workshops at the university in the capital
city of the province, she learned the basics of MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint from her sister.
For the rest, she said:
[I’m] exploring how PowerPoint presentations can attract attention of my students. They
are in fact more adept at PowerPoint. By making PowerPoint [presentations] on my own,
I send messages to them that we have some common interests with technology.
Ms. A ended the interview by sharing her passion for teaching: “We are doing our best in our
special science class, hoping that students might become future engineers and scientists.”
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Several teachers have attended ICT training conducted by the school divisions. The training
covered how to use programs like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Teachers were
grateful to the division office for providing them training in the use of Excel for their e-student
class records, test scores, and grade computation. In addition, Ms. D was hoping that more
households within the vicinity of the school would advocate for Internet subscriptions. “If the
subscription reaches a minimum quota, then an Internet provider would bring the service to the
community and that means our school could also be connected to the Internet!”
Ms. B stated that to compensate for the limited number of textbooks in the class, she often took
screenshots of the text then annotated them and projected them onto the board. However, unlike
Ms. A, who has a fixed TV monitor mounted on the wall of her classroom, Ms. B has to share
one TV unit with six fellow science teachers. When they need to use it during the same period,
teachers must switch classrooms in the middle of the class rather than transferring the TV unit
from one classroom to another. In order to minimize the loss of instruction time while students
change classrooms, teachers give out guide questions about the video for students to think about.
“We could not produce another TV unit but we could always create appropriate strategies for
students to continue learning,” said Ms. B, offering a positive proposition instead of complaining
about the scarcity of resources at the school. Most of the time, Ms. B and other teachers at this
school have to download online resources in advance at home, since the Internet is not available
for classroom use except in the school’s computer learning resource room. The computers in this
room are mainly used for administrative purposes. The science teachers at this school speculated
that interactive science lessons via online sourcing or digital whiteboards would not work there,
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and even videos to be used in class had to be downloaded at home and played as a saved
document rather than as an online link.
With the current infrastructure of the school, what teachers really need is content and pedagogy
training, particularly for junior high school teachers like them who have to teach other core
science subjects outside their field. They need a comfortable science teachers’ room where they
can gather and confer regarding specialized science content and strategy, with quality reference
textbooks and laboratory equipment. As a former K-12 teacher, I agree that the provision of
computers for students is a welcome initiative. However, with the lack of Internet access,
unstable power supply, limited ICT training programs for teachers, and demanding teaching
loads, computers might not be maximized for learning. This apprehension echoes the World
Bank Report (2017) which cites studies that many of the ICT interventions in education “fail or
stumble badly before being implemented” (p. 146). One reason for this is the failure to focus on
technologies that are realistically feasible in current and existing systems. For example,
introducing technologies in rural school classrooms might be more attractive “because of the
weak education system…but this system itself (i.e., limited access to electricity or Internet
connection) has the least capacity to support education technology interventions” (p. 147). Public
officials in developing countries who invest highly in education technology may derive “political
returns from flashy technological interventions, independent of their usefulness for better
learning” (p. 147); in other words, politicians aiming for highly visible investments may miss the
opportunity to contribute to real learning in the classroom if new investments do not consider the
current realities of the school system. There may also be issues with school administrators who
are unrealistically optimistic about the transformative impact of technology in schools.
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Theme 4: Affordances of Available Technology
The fourth emergent theme was affordances of available technology. It included three child
nodes: “technology,” “multimedia literacy,” and “closing digital code” (Figure 31). Affordances
of technology as verbalized by science teachers revolve not around “available ICT resources” but
rather around “appropriate ICT resources” in school that can be maximized for students’ learning
and teachers’ professional growth. Echoing her fellow teachers, Ms. B explained that such
“appropriateness” means “ICT investments should concentrate on improving their PCK
especially on science subjects that they are assigned to teach yet outside their expertise.” It also
means ICT should be appropriate within the school’s current physical infrastructure. It is
impossible to maximize the computers available if there is no Internet connection in the school.
Figure 31: Theme 4 “Affordances of Available Technology”
Turning once again to the example of Ms. A’s LED TV, Ms. A told me that she originally
thought of using the birthday funds gifted to her by her former students for an air-conditioning
unit for her classroom. However, she realized that the school would not allow this, as it would
increase the school’s electricity bill. So, instead of an air-conditioning unit, she decided to
purchase a LED TV. She realized that the TV was more appropriate for her science and physics
class, since it would enable her to quickly connect with her laptop to show videos and
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PowerPoint presentations, and would save time and energy compared to her old multimedia
projector.
Another concrete discussion on the affordances of appropriate technology took place with Ms. J.
She was using a weather application downloaded on her phone. The weather app monitors cloud
formations, shows up-to-date weather reports and hazard areas, etc. She introduced her science
class to the app, demonstrating for her students how to locate nearby weather monitoring
stations. The students were surprised to learn that even shopping malls in the city have weather
monitoring stations. Accessing the weather app via a phone was not a problem among students as
long as they were connected to the Internet. Almost all students have mobile phones. All teachers
have mobile phones. Some teachers have more than one mobile phone unit. This is not surprising
in the Philippines, even for rural public high schools. Based on a recent survey, Philippine
mobile phone subscriptions sit at 114 for every 100 Filipinos, outnumbering the national
population (Mirandilla-Santos, 2016).
Ms. J teaches at one of the luckier schools in the division, with a relatively stable Internet
connection. The school is sandwiched between two nearby cities. One of the two cities is the
capital city of the province, and so the two national Internet service providers are also available.
The other city is Bago, the site of junior high school teachers participating in the study. The
school administration was quick to take advantage of this opportunity by making sure that the
school could also get a better Internet connection. Ms. J pointed out:
Although we need more LED TV monitor to be installed in each classroom for better
video or PowerPoint viewing, our school has already an e-library. With this facility, I
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make sure that when students go online, they have very specific objectives on what to
look for. I train them to be information or media literate!
In the case of Ms. B, her school has a full-time IT staff. Unfortunately, the available Internet was
only accessible in the computer room, and this room was only available for administrative
purposes and computer classes. There were reports that more computers would be delivered to
public schools by the DepEd; however, Ms. B and her fellow science teachers were skeptical as
to how they could maximize the computers in their science lessons when there is no Internet
connection in their school. During our science movie creation workshops, they had difficulties in
accessing photos and diagrams online. Although the video-editing software worked without an
Internet connection, trying to find and download media resources needed for the video-making
process was challenging and frustrating. Ms. B suggested that “with the current infrastructure in
the school, what we need is content and pedagogy training.”
Ms. K, a co-teacher of Ms. B’s, also speculated on the issue of computer provision for students.
In her view, “the distribution of computer in schools is a reasonable initiative.” However, she
believed that “with the limited technological infrastructures for Internet access and limited ICT
training for science teachers, computers might not support students learning.” She said that one
better way of reducing the teacher-student digital gap and improving teachers’ multimedia
literacy is for the government to invest more in teachers’ professional development related to
ICT, not just in delivering computers to schools to reduce teacher/student to computer ratios.
While Ms. K was making her final edits on her video piece, she said: “Though I am still
struggling on how to annotate, edit my storyboard, I think in the long run, having know-how on
video editing is an edge.”
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As science teachers engaged in video creation (on any topics in General Science to Physics) from
pre-production to post-production, I made an Observation Protocol Matrix (Appendix H) on the
extent of integrating ICT using the Adoption and Use of ICT by Morel’s Matrix (Center for
Research, 2009). The matrix was converted into a visualized radar chart (Figure 32). For every
stage, from “emerging” (the lowest stage) to “transforming” (the highest stage), I assigned points
for every teacher from 1–50, where 1 is the lowest manifestation of using or exhibiting skills in
ICT and 50 is the highest. It should be noted that most of the teachers belonged to the emerging
and applying stages with points of 20 and higher. Only a handful of them had reached the
“integrating” and “transforming” stages with points around 10 and below.
The “emerging” stage is the lowest stage in the adoption of ICT. One manifestation of this stage
is that science teachers start to realize several areas and/or aspects of their science teaching
where they can make use of ICT. Science teachers expressed several possible situations where
they might use ICT, and this explained why the radar chart showed higher levels at the
“emerging” stage for all teachers (from Ms. A to Ms. J). It was exhibited by more than 75% of
teachers, who expressed belief in the potential of Camtasia and Snagit (Techsmith, 2019) for
creating visual aids and demonstrating science concepts using video. This was their first time
using the editing software. Some of them even suggested making videos for school reports and
activities submitted to the division school office annually.
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Figure 32: Science Teacher-Participants’ Level of ICT Adoption
Meanwhile, more than 50% of the teachers were in the “applying” stage. They were already
using specific functions and features of the software to annotate and design the photos and
videos that they planned to show to the students. When I asked Ms. I why she placed an
annotated photo of a broomstick labeled as a comet’s tail beside a screenshot of a comet with a
glowing head, she said,
Well, according to our elders and students’ grandparents, the tail’s comet is like a
broomstick. As a broomstick, it sweeps the blessings out of the community. That’s why
elders warned that the appearance of a comet with a tail pointing downward means
famine or death in the community or wherever the comet would land.
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Ms. I’s narration and annotation using a superstitious belief embedded in her community’s
history was a way of concretizing the implementation of conceptualization in science in the new
curriculum. Using community beliefs and practices to establish connections in science and to
help students develop science literacy and value Filipino identity is clearly aligned with DepEd’s
new K-12 curriculum (Morales, 2016). This use of ICT is part of the applying stage.
“Integrating” is the 3rd stage in the ICT adoption matrix, and only around 20%–30% of teachers
had reached it. As the name suggests, teachers should integrate a number of ICTs in their lessons
aligned to a curriculum. Ms. I’s video which integrated local beliefs about the appearance of a
comet in the sky resulted in a higher spike of her score under the “integrating stage” compared to
other science teachers. However, Ms. I recognized that her video might be more impactful to the
students if she used it in conjunction with an invited elder from the community speaking directly
to students about the beliefs elders hold related to the appearance of comets in the sky; she plans
to do with her class next year. Moreover, Ms. I noticed that while Camtasia and Snagit allowed
her to present colorful photos of volcanoes, these tools could not replace the experience and
learning that happens when students present a role play about how people react when a volcanic
eruption takes place in their town. She explained: “Our bolo (knife) can cut a Papaya tree easily
but it could not explain how and what cells are made of. There is a limit what a technology can
give and do.”
Ms. I was touching on a crucial issue: different forms of ICT have different affordances and
constraints. If Butterfield and Ngondi’s (2016) definition of ICT is adopted and ICT may cover
computers, the Internet, television broadcasts, and even printed or handwritten notes, then the
inclusion of printed and handwritten notes would mean that teachers have already reached the
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integration level and some of them might be in the last stage already—the “transforming” stage.
For example, Ms. A has used graphing paper and compass to extrapolate and triangulate
earthquake data. However, if OECD’s (2018) definition is followed—that is, if ICT is
categorized as having three components (i.e., information technology equipment which includes
computers and related hardware, communications equipment, and software)—then most of the
teachers would be in the “applying” stage.
5.1.3 Science Movie Creation Workshops
The science video-creation workshops (Appendix F) as a quick review were composed of spiral
progression sessions as follows: (1) pre-production, which included several sub-steps such as a)
taking, editing, and annotating screenshots of still pictures, b) recording and editing audio and
video clips, and c) storyboarding; (2) production, which involved the actual arranging of media
along with the storyline; and (3) post-production, which included a review of the final video,
presentation, and evaluation. Teachers were encouraged to limit their videos to 3–5 minutes.
There were 8 sessions conducted, and each session lasted 2–5 hours each. In each session, prior
to the start of pre-production, the teacher-participants and I had an informal dialogue about FoK
and how they used it in their science class. The conversation was a platform for the teachers to
affirm their contributions to the teaching profession. I also used this platform to inform them that
each of them was a co-creator of knowledge and the series of videos they created would
represent the richness of their experience.
The pre-production session was the longest part. It occupied almost half of the total time of the
sessions. We spent a long time in creating the storyboard. Teachers understood the rationale for
this. Developing a well-planned storyboard, anticipating what was needed in the video-creation
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proper, and carefully considering students’ needs in the context of the videos were all crucial
elements of locally based learning through videos. The teachers worked either individually or in
groups. They verbalized their ideas for the storyboard using index cards and colored pens. They
brainstormed how to compress a typical 20–30 minute science class discussion into a 3–5 minute
video. The most common topic that was made into a video was that of comets; there was a
teacher or a group of teachers in each of the five schools who created a video about comets. The
superstitious and scientific beliefs related to the appearance of a comet were emphasized in the
videos. Initially, this was a topic I suggested to the teachers during pre-production. I made the
suggestion in reference to the interviews I conducted with them, noting that students have
strongly held superstitious beliefs about comets as influenced by their elders. The teachers took
the suggestion seriously, and with the video editing software, they explored how they might
convince students to look at both perspectives: superstitious and scientific. There were also
videos created to explain the parts and functions of an ear, and another on air pressure.
Before we proceeded to the actual layering of media (photos, audio, video) for the production
part, several teachers were already considering how and where in their science classes they could
possibly apply their new skills in annotating and editing photos, audio, and video using Camtasia
and Snagit. As we started arranging the sequence of their media as a storyline, many of them
thought of creating videos for their school programs or for birthdays and weddings. Finally,
during the post-production part, teachers presented and evaluated their video masterpieces. There
was a time constraint when it came to the evaluation portion (for example, some teachers have to
leave the session to go back to their classes), and so limited input was given by the teachers.
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5.1.3.1 Analyses and Reflections
Ms. I: A Detached and Expanded TPACK
In the context of science teacher-participants, particularly in the specific case of Ms. I, all
throughout the eight sessions conducted from January 3–15, 2019, my field notes and memos
and teacher-participants’ reflections and comments provided rich indications of progress. Ms. I
made an initial self-assessment regarding what she felt was her degree of use of TPACK and
FoK in her science classes. Her self-assessment is shown in Figure 33. For her, the three circle
components have varying sizes depicting roughly how much knowledge she felt she had for
every component and how each component was related to one another. Her use of FoK in
science, signified by a dotted arrow entering the TPACK’s circle, came without any attempt to
use any form of ICT, even the chalkboard. It manifested purely in the form of verbal discussion.
Thus, she represented her technological knowledge (TK) as detached from other components of
TPACK.
Ms. I was a chemistry teacher with a teaching load in earth and general science. She decided to
make a 3–5 minute video to convince her students that the comet’s appearance is not a bad omen
as most of them have heard from their elders. Her plan was to acknowledge students’ identities
(González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) by putting together some video clips about superstitious
beliefs in comets and anchoring them in canonical science (Taber, 2014).
On her storyboard, she wrote that the popular superstitious belief about comets among elders
would be presented. She planned to tell the students through a video that superstitious beliefs are
part of their culture. The video clips would present an animation along with some narration about
comet sightings recorded in the past. Yet, she would add another clip explaining that comet
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sightings have been successfully predicted using the laws of physics and mathematics. Ms. I said
that she had a considerable background in astronomy. This was supported by her responses on
the self-assessment questionnaire, which showed high confidence in content knowledge.
However, she admitted that she discusses most of the astronomical concepts in class via a
traditional lecture method. This was the reason why she drew a bigger circle for content
knowledge than pedagogical knowledge on her pre-production to production self-assessment, as
shown in Figure 33.
Figure 33: Ms. I.’s TPACK and FoK During Pre-production to Production
Now, she was using Camtasia, Snagit, and some video clips downloaded using the Internet in her
home to introduce a comet. Besides having trouble navigating the functions and tools in
Camtasia, she had difficulty finding the appropriate video clips. Had she decided to download
the clips at her school on the day of the workshop, she definitely could not have stuck to her
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storyboard. The Internet was so weak that, even in the computer room, we had difficulty opening
our email. She might have used still photos instead. Despite her understanding of comets, I
noticed that Ms. I tended to use “comet” and “asteroid” interchangeably (in our dialect, a comet
or an asteroid is called by the same name: bulalakaw).
Moreover, as she described how the comet’s tail is formed as its orbit comes close to the sun, she
tended to use “melting” and “dissolving” interchangeably. When a comet’s orbit gets closer to
the sun, the part that is facing the sun heats up (to melt and not to dissolve) and disintegrates into
dust and gases stretching into space which appear from Earth as a giant bright light (NASA,
2019). This bright light forms the tail of a comet. To melt and to dissolve are two different
scientific concepts (Taber, 2005), as are asteroid and comet (Cosmos, 2019). These terms and
other similar pairs (e.g., rotation and revolution, mass and weight), when used interchangeably in
a science class, might confuse students who are starting to learn the distinct meanings of each
term. Likewise, these instances of using distinct terms interchangeably were examples of
learning impediments (Taber, 2005).
Through the science video-creation workshops, science teachers were given the opportunity to
collaboratively confront learning impediments by differentiating and addressing concepts
correctly in their videos. Then, after discussing the distinct meaning of each scientific concept,
they brainstormed how they could reorganize and represent the concepts in their storyboards in a
way that is accessible for the students. Throughout the workshops, teachers tried to spot possible
learning impediments in their storyboards. After spotting them, they discussed how such
impediments might have been imparted to their students in the past and how they could correct
them moving forward. The discussions did not end there. Teachers tried to recall and examine
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how learning impediments impact teaching and learning, curriculum and pedagogy in science,
etc. The practice of spotting events or circumstances in the teaching and learning process and
connecting them to wider issues of curriculum and pedagogy is termed “calling-out”
(Frederiksen, 1992) or “noticing” (van Es & Sherin, 2002). From the framework of Learning to
Notice (van Es & Sherin, 2002), the act of noticing how the terms are used correctly or
incorrectly represents the first level of professional growth. The next level is for the teacher-
observer or the “noticer” to be able to connect the learning impediment or learning bug (Taber,
2005) to the bigger perspective of conception and misconception in scientific learning as well as
the contextualization of science concepts (Anderson & Nashon, 2006). In the workshops,
teachers were able to cultivate the skill of noticing learning impediments by deciding on
appropriate labels and annotations in their videos as they considered their students who were
learning science as second-language learners (Duff, 2008).
Going back to Ms. I, she completed the production and post-production of her video after the
third workshop session. She gradually noticed that she had made considerable improvements.
She could already locate several functions and buttons in Camtasia software for annotation,
editing, audio control, fade in and fade out of audio, media transition, etc. She said that she
needed more time to correctly arrange different photos and illustrations to match with the audio
recording or background music. She also reminded herself to consistently attribute all the sources
she was using in her video on top of being conscientious regarding the use of animation,
narration, and text in combination (Tembrevilla & Milner-Bolotin, 2019). We transferred her
video to a portable USB drive and connected it to the wide TV monitor framed by light steel bars
to protect it from scratches. During the brief discussion and evaluation of her presentation before
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her fellow workshop participants, Ms. I started to notice how she restrained herself from the use
of the term dissolving vs. melting as she again explained how the icy parts of a comet
disintegrate as the comet gets closer to the sun. She noticed that she was still using “comet” and
“asteroid” interchangeably, as she was confused by the translation of the term bulalakaw (both
meant as comet and asteroid). “Should you use more animation with audio or music
background?” one teacher-participant asked her. She replied, “I am not sure, but if I were
watching the video, I think I need to explain the concepts correctly and clearly.”
In our (me and my supervisor at the University of British Columbia) experience making science
videos for science, technology, engineering, and math teachers (STEM), we make sure that the
concepts are explained clearly. We explain the concepts in the language understood by our target
audience. We also limit the combination of narration, animation, and on-screen text to reduce
cognitive load for the viewers (Tembrevilla & Milner-Bolotin, 2019) as empirically studied and
recommended by Mayer (2017).
The short evaluation provided Ms. I some avenues to reflect on the relevance and
appropriateness of her video for her students, the improvement of her TPACK, and her use of
FoK. She admitted, however, that the whole process of making the video was indeed time-
consuming. Similar to the rest of the teacher-participants, Ms. I said that her clerical,
administrative, and teaching loads were becoming more overwhelming. She said that she would
probably not have enough time to finish the video had it been done during a regular class day.
Based on Ms. I’s self-reflection, she changed her TPACK and FoK diagram as shown in Figure
34. She narrated that her improved understanding and awareness of scientific concepts like
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melting, dissolving, comet, and asteroid allowed her to adjust the sequence of her video clips.
She adjusted the order of the video clips, and added pictures of a grandmother telling a story to
her grandchildren about a comet and a scientist illustrating how the tail of a comet is formed. She
added these pictures as she invited students to recall the stories they had heard from their elders
and science teachers about comets. By presenting both sides of the story—both the superstitious
and scientific—Ms. I felt she maintained the proper balance: “Elders’ wisdom was
acknowledged. The scientific perspective was introduced. Now, the students can start a
discussion with one another.”
Ms. I’s post-production TPACK has positively and gradually changed. The circle representing
technological knowledge has now overlapped with content and pedagogical knowledge (Figure
34). The circle representing pedagogical knowledge has increased in size as well as the circle on
technological knowledge. The FoK’s arrow entering and pointing to the overlapping circles of
TPACK components indicated that FoK was integrated in the video-creation. The increase in the
size of circles related to PK, CK, and TK and the re-connection of TPACK’s three components
were indicators that integrating FoK with the use of ICT enhanced Ms. I’s TPACK.
One observation that stands out in the video-creation workshops, as represented by Ms. I, was
that the FoK expanded the original TPACK framework. Prior to this and for the first time, her
pre-production TPACK (Figure 33) indicated that a detached TPACK can exist in junior high
school science teaching with FoK. Notably, for the first time as well, her post-production
TPACK (Figure 34) revealed that a teacher’s TPACK can also be expanded not by any
component from the inside of the framework but by an outside component. The science video-
creation with the use of FoK not only expanded each of the TPACK components but also
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allowed each component to be reconnected to one another. This is seen as a novel idea for the
TPACK framework, since the original framework was intended to portray a “state of dynamic
equilibrium” of the three components only: technology, pedagogy, and content (Mishra &
Koehler, 2006, p. 1029). Ms. I’s pre-production TPACK separates the technological knowledge
component from the other two components. In the context of actual teaching, this situation
denotes that science teaching without appropriate educational technology integration does not
produce quality science teaching as suggested by the TPACK framework. However, her post-
production TPACK represents an expanded TPACK. An expanded TPACK brought about by the
use of technology and FoK denotes a science teaching innovation that potentially improves the
quality of science teaching as it aligns with TPACK’s framework.
Figure 34: Ms. I.’s TPACK and FoK During Post-production
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Ms. C: The Translator and Interpreter
Unlike Ms. I., Ms. C. had been using videos for her science class for the past two years. She
usually downloads YouTube videos about weather, earthquakes, and sci-fi movies. Her
consistent complaint was that when she showed these videos to the class, she literally translated
the discussion from English to Hiligaynon (the local Philippine dialect) for the students to
understand. She said students are not used to catching-up with the fast and difficult to follow
British or English accent. With the translation, students can pick up the concepts in the video, yet
Ms. C tended to need to extend the lesson into another session or send the students late to their
next class. Ms. C explained how the showing of videos in class attracted students’ attention:
Sometimes I needed to move forward the movie clip because I was running out of time but
the students would scream ‘No!’…because they still wanted to see all the parts of the video.
Now I have two problems. One was how and where to look for videos with less British or
English accent. Second, I needed a wide screen or TV monitor.
I had a one-on-one science video workshop with Ms. C for two hours. She knew how to use
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. She had some experience downloading and doing quick movie
editing using a pre-arranged video maker. What she liked about Camtasia and Snagit was that
she could record the explanations of science concepts and details of the video in dialect with her
own voice. Based on her own self-assessment and impressions after the workshop together with
further reflections which she sent to me via email two months later, she said, “I am happy that I
am making videos with my voice as the explainer and interpreter in the background…they were
giggling as they listened to my voice.”
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Ms. C said that without having to constantly translate videos from British accent to dialect, she
had much more time with her students to discuss the content of the video in relation to their
experiences. She added that while surfing online to look for content for her video, she was able
to encounter new ideas and techniques to help her teach science. Although there are plenty of
teaching ideas online, she was becoming more discerning in choosing appropriate sources for her
videos. Ms. C was growing as a critical user of online resources. She was starting to realize
science videos online do not completely address the actual needs of her students. Now that she
knew how to edit and split video segments, she had the liberty to include or exclude a given
video segment for her own science videos. She also realized that while the use of science videos
offers an easy way to communicate scientific concepts to the students, it does not replace the
practice of communicating and discussing concepts face-to-face with her students in a classroom
or video call. It was an indication of her professional growth as media literate (Choe, 2017) and a
critical user of technology for her science class (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).
Ms. C.’s interview transcripts were punctuated with interjections like “Yes,” “Ok,” and “Oh I
see…” and I understood the reason. My memo notes indicated that during the interview, her
explanations were offered, most of the time, through gestures or drawings. The recordings of
“Yes,” “Ok,” and “Oh I see…” recalled to me our animated discussions, which were similar to
my conversations with the most of science teachers I interviewed and spoke with during and
after the video workshops. The animated sharing of ideas by Ms. C. during the interview was an
indication that the interview process was not just a standard protocol of question and answer.
Rather, it was a mutual conversation and social practice where I and Ms. C. were co-contributors
of knowledge (Talmy, 2010).
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Summary of the Key Findings
Through a thematic analysis of all interview and focus group transcripts including the pre- and
post-science video-creation workshops, the following key findings were identified:
(1) Four emergent themes became clear. These themes were: enablers, policy and
governance, affordance of available technology, and FoK.
(2) Enablers were science teachers’ actions, activities, and practices that described their key
initiatives to integrate ICT in their science classes despite limited resources and support.
(3) Policy and governance involved three sub-themes: PD, budgetary constraints, and
competitiveness with private education. These sub-themes pertained to directives and
ICT initiatives from the government and perspectives of science teachers on PD programs
related to the use of ICT. For the science teacher-participants, the focus on policy and
governance should be about how national ICT initiatives should be re-calibrated and re-
purposed to suit the actual needs of science teachers in rural school settings
(4) Affordance of available technology included three sub-themes: technology, multimedia
literacy, and closing the digital divide. Considering the limited technological
infrastructures in rural schools, for the teachers, affordances of technology referred to
“appropriate ICT resources” rather than “available ICT resources.” Appropriateness
meant that DepEd leadership should invest in ICT and teacher PD that match with the
existing facilities in their rural schools. Science teachers like Ms. I were able to start
recognizing the affordances and constraints of educational technology (e.g., video).
(5) FoK was defined as having two components: community collaboration and parent teacher
engagement. FoK was seen as a bridge to promote valuing of students’ and communities’
history and practices while developing students’ science literacy and reasoning.
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(6) With FoK integration, a detached TPACK and an expanded TPACK were documented
for the first time in rural junior high school science teaching. A detached TPACK might
reduce the quality of science teaching, but an expanded and re-connected TPACK
introduces innovative new science teaching with FoK and technology in rural schools.
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Chapter 6: Results and Discussions
In this chapter, I discuss the three overarching themes generated after the triangulation of
quantitative and qualitative data analyses and findings. I start by recalling the summary of
quantitative and qualitative analyses outlined in Table 21.
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Quantitative Analysis Qualitative Analysis
Profiles of Participants & Division- Emergent Themes
Region Wide Trends • Four emergent themes were generated out

of the 20 individual themes.
• 141 public junior high school science • The four themes include: Enablers, FoK,
teachers joined all over DepEd Region 6 Policy & Governance, and Affordances of
• 39 out of 45 science teachers from the available technology.
Division of Bago City, the research site, • Enabler
joined; they represented 87% of the total The challenges teachers faced as they use
junior high science teachers in the ICT like inequality and limited resources,
division limited content and pedagogy for science
• 122 of the science teacher-participants subjects taught outside their expertise
were in their 1st-3rd year of teaching enable them to become resourceful and
• 81% were bachelor of education creative, self-sacrificing, resilient, open and
graduates less reluctance for change.
• 76% were master’s degree holders • FoK
• 96% have laptops, 73% used Internet for Use of FoK in science classes bridged
science class from personal respect among students, school, and
subscription, 81% complained of no or community. It develops science literacy and
slow Internet, 75% used laptop mostly argumentation. However, it was also seen
for video and power point showing as a threat to the development of the same,
• Top 3 FoK themes used by teachers: science literacy and argumentation, when
local geography, agriculture, & elders’ students have high regards with their
beliefs elders’ superstitious beliefs. Use of video
had the potential to balance the two.
Emergent Themes • Policy and Governance
ICT investments should focus on teaching
• EFA yielded three emergent themes: and professional development of teachers.
TPACK, Administrative Support & Teachers suggested that ICT investments
Professional Development, and FoK should match the existing infrastructure of
• The three themes were determined using the school and their actual needs.
multiple statistical analyses: Kaiser’s • Affordances of available technology
(1960) eigenvalue-greater-than-one-rule, ICT investments should focus on improving
Maximum Likelihood, Principal Axis teachers’ PCK. “Appropriate technology”
Factoring, Catell’s (1960) Scree Test, was better than “available technology”. ICT
Velicer’s (1976, 1986) Minimum should be based on teachers’ needs and
Average Partial Test, and Horn’s existing infrastructure in school.
Parallel Analysis • For the first time, a detached TPACK and
• Prior to EFA, data were tested for EFA an expanded TPACK were documented
suitability. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value when FoK was integrated in science class
was at 0.712 (higher suitability) and in rural high school.
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity at p<0.001
(highly significant suitability)
Table 22: Summary of Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses
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6.1 Results: Overarching Themes
The mixed-methods model (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004) adopted in this study is a
combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and a toolbox to establish overarching
themes and link the strengths of my quantitative and qualitative analyses. It offered me the
option “to mix and match design components that offer the best chance of answering [my]
specific research questions” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. l5). It is an integrative method
that permitted me to gain a wider perspective on the challenges faced by science teachers as they
use ICT in their class as the phenomena in focus (Watkins & Gioia, 2015).
Now, using the “core premise of triangulation,” that is, finding the convergence and
corroborations of mixed-method results looking at the same phenomena (Greene, Carcelli, &
Graham, 1989, p. 256), I present three overarching themes as findings of this study:
1. TPACK as a foundational professional development enabler of ICT-centered
curriculum implementation.
2. FoK as a bridge to enhance teachers’ TPACK and ICT-centered science
pedagogy.
3. Successful implementations of ICT-centered science curriculum and pedagogy as
policy and governance dependent.
6.1.1 Theme 1: TPACK as a Foundational Professional Development Enabler of ICT-
centered Curricular Implementation and a K-12 Enabler
Based on EFA, question items 16–21 (Table 18) in an online questionnaire merged into one
factor, and that factor was conceptually interpreted as one emergent theme: TPACK as a new K-
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12 curriculum enabler. The five items represented the highest factor loading mean at 0.806.
These five items that belonged to TPACK as a theme were named technology, pedagogy,
content, confidence, and beliefs and attitudes. These themes matched with the themes coded
using qualitative methods. Based on thematic analysis, individual codes that aligned with
TPACK and enabler themes were substantially referenced and attributed to one-on-one and focus
group interview transcripts and science video workshops including field and memo notes. NVivo
analysis traced these themes with a corresponding number of references as follow: enabler (60),
resourcefulness and creativity (60), affordances of available technology (58), pedagogy (41),
content (37), technology (31), professional development (22), and multimedia literacy (17).
In the context of DepEd’s new K-12 curriculum in junior high school science, TPACK becomes
a foundational part of professional development. It means mastery of content and diverse
pedagogical approaches including ICT competency to teach core science subjects both inside and
outside teacher-participants’ expertise. This aligns with similar research among public and rural
junior high school chemistry teachers in the Philippines (Orbe, Espinosa, & Datukan, 2018). In
this study, chemistry teachers noted that since science subjects (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics)
are specialized subjects, teachers should also have specialized training in biology and physics
coupled with ICT training in order for them to be competent in teaching such core science
subjects. To be a specialist in one subject takes time, and to be a multi-specialist in the new
curriculum takes a lifetime. This finding further supports the need to improve Filipino teachers’
mastery of their content subjects as reports showed that elementary and high school teachers’
subject content knowledge was low on top of unsatisfactory professional development training
(Oxford BG, 2017).
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Teaching science in rural schools demands craftmanship and creativity. Struggles to master
content among teacher-participants were evidently observed during science video workshops.
For example, Ms. I was aware that she used the terms “comet” and “asteroid” interchangeably as
well as “melts” and “dissolves.” Teacher-participants’ difficulty in creating storyboards in a way
that considered students’ needs and realities was also an indication that they are striving to
improve their pedagogical skills, as seen with Ms. K. Ms. A added that with limited teaching
resources in public schools, everything boils down to what she calls diskarte (teacher’s
craftmanship and strategy). If the teacher knows how to use diskarte and is really interested to
helping students learn in her class, “she will have several ways to teach the lesson.” In education
research, Shulman (1987) calls this transformation. One indicator of transformation— according
to Shulman’s enduring classic pedagogical and content knowledge (PCK) legacy—with which
teacher-participants are struggling is the ability to design a lesson that matches their students’
actual needs, language, motivations, etc.
Ms. A’s teaching craftmanship equates to her ability to address students’ learning difficulties by
modifying her teaching styles. It is a manifestation of her progress in mastering content. For Ms.
I and Ms. K, making use of video in science class by personally creating storyboards, layering
media, and annotating was a total transformation of their formerly fixed understanding of the
functionality of a video. Particularly in rural settings where you literally need to climb a tree or
elevate yourself to send short messages from a mobile phone, teachers understood that science
videos are intended for students to watch and learn scientific concepts. Prior to the workshop
sessions, they never realized that video editing technology was accessible and they could make
their own science videos with a backdrop of hectares of sugar cane and rice paddies. Now, they
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can create their own videos and in the process expand their TPACK. Rural high school science
teachers’ experience of overcoming fixation on what a particular technology’s function is (e.g.,
video) and exploring more creative ways that such technology can function to improve teaching
and learning practice is a distinct indicator of professional growth. For rural schools that are
dismally sideswiped by progress and development, science teachers are now the enablers who
decide how available technology will and should function to serve the curriculum. Cognitive
scientists have a term for teachers’ experience of fixation regarding a technology’s function:
“functional fixedness” (Birch, 1945; German & Barett, 2005). Functional fixedness impedes
inquiry and exploratory ways of using technologies creatively (Koehler & Mishra, 2008).
Teachers’ ways of exploring creative uses of available technology beyond their “functional
fixedness” to address curricular and pedagogical needs of rural schools stands as a resounding
TPACK enabler.
Science teachers’ desire to master science domain subjects in junior high school, which both
themselves and the school have to work out, is clearly mandated by Republic Act 10533 known
as the “Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013” and popularly termed as the new K-12
curriculum (RA, 2013). It states that teachers should provide every student “an opportunity to
receive quality education that is globally competitive based on a pedagogically sound curriculum
that is at par with international standards” (p. 2).
Another concrete example of how science teacher’s growth in TPACK enables enhanced
teaching and learning in rural schools was exhibited by Ms. C. Prior to the science video
workshops, she complained that every time she showed a science video to the class, she had to
literally translate the discussion from English to Hiligaynon (local dialect) since students had
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difficulty following a British or English accent. Now, she can record her voice explaining the
differences between the epicenter and the focus of earthquake. Ms. C is becoming adept at
modulating her recorded voice using Camtasia and Snagit. With this software, she can create
videos using her voice as a background translator of science concepts. Because students could
understand the new science videos, Ms. C can save some instruction time that she can use for
more discussions and activities in a 60-minute class. In Mayer’s (2004) multimedia learning
theory, Ms. C’s technique of recording her voice to explain scientific concepts in her videos is
related to the principle of personalization—having a human element that enhances the process of
meaning-making for the audience. Ms. C’s recorded voice might increase students’ attention and
participation when watching videos, since personalization builds familiarity and emotional
association with the students (Hansch et al., 2015).
TPACK as a foundational professional development enabler of ICT-centered curriculum also
involves science teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about ICT and their impact on pedagogy. Their
pedagogical beliefs and appreciation of ICT were shown in their creativity, resourcefulness, and
self-sacrifice. They initiated fund-raising activities to purchase an LED TV for their science
classes. They provided themselves with laptops that they can use for audio-visual presentations
in class, besides using them to store and manage students’ records. They agreed to switch
classrooms in the middle of class to share the use of a single LED TV when colleagues need to
use it as well. They provided students with portable USB drives for enrichment activities where
students can access the Internet on their own outside the school. They bought a second-hand
copier for paid photocopying services among teachers, students, and staff and then used the
proceeds to buy laboratory equipment. They took turns adding Internet data on their pocket Wi-fi
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to access the Internet during their science classes. They were going the extra mile despite the
limited availability of ICT infrastructure and resources. Studies have revealed that higher
frequency of ICT use in the classroom is closely linked to teachers’ positive beliefs and attitudes
towards ICT (Jimoyiannis & Komis, 2007; Mama & Hennessy, 2014; Milner-Bolotin, 2017).
These are very encouraging indicators that teacher-participants have a strong belief that
technology can support equity in learning, particularly with students in rural areas who generally
have less access to technology than their counterparts in urban areas (Vergel de Dios, 2016;
Business World, 2018; Ramos, 2019).
Lastly, teacher-participants’ efforts to integrate ICT in the new K-12 science curriculum despite
limited resources transformed them into new K-12 enablers in the rural areas. Nearly all of the
indicators of teacher-participants as enablers surfaced in qualitative data analysis. In fact, except
for “enabler” as an additional emergent theme under qualitative data analysis, both quantitative
and qualitative analysis reached parallel convergence on three generated emergent themes:
TPACK, FoK, and Policy and Governance. Had coding references attributed to “enabler” as a
theme in qualitative analysis failed to reach 50% of the total references originating from one-on-
one interviews, focus group discussions, observations and reflections during science video
workshops, it should have been dropped from the final list of emerging themes. However, as
shown in qualitative analysis, “enabler” occupied the topmost level of emerging themes. Framed
through a TPACK lens, teachers’ struggles to integrate technology are complicated as they start
to understand that technology, besides being limited in availability in rural schools, has specific
affordances and constraints. Yet the enabling practices of science teacher-participants listed
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below indicated that their subject content knowledge is expanding and they made it accessible to
the students by:
(1) contacting former students, alumni, and parent-teacher associations for donations to purchase
LED TVs and other needed classroom renovations (e.g., classroom toilet, floors, or windows);
(2) inviting resource persons in the community to talk in their science classes (e.g., farmers,
poultry owners);
(3) using local and native fruits and plants as models for body organs;
(4) using local tools and practices in farming;
(5) printing activity materials in advance at home for each group of students in the class;
(6) using empty condiment bottles as improvised beakers and test tubes;
(7) bringing local plants and fruits into the class to test them as either acids and bases, etc.
On top of these practices, Ms. B and her other six colleagues in one school’s science department
opted to stay together in a makeshift faculty room extended off the end of a regular classroom.
Ms. B clarified that by doing this they can conveniently exchange ideas, share teaching practices,
and do things together that can improve camaraderie and interpersonal relationships. The
struggles of teachers to understand the affordances and constraints of technology and their
enabling practices including Ms B’s and her colleagues’ choice to gather in a makeshift faculty
room echo what research says about teachers’ traits that constitute expertise in teaching. Quoting
Campbell (1990-1991), Smith and Strahan (2004) said that expert teachers persistently seek to
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improve their practice, and “outstanding teachers adapt to professionally inadequate
environments by continually seeking avenues to improve their teaching performance and by
seeking and maintaining peer support systems that reinforced their sense of mission” (p. 368).
6.1.2 Theme 2: FoK as a Bridge to Enhance Teachers’ TPACK and ICT-centered
Science Pedagogy
Use of local knowledge in science education improves student science literacy.
Ms. H (Transcript 10/10, Dec. 7, 2018)
Besides the encompassing references attributed to the theme “enabler” and individual child
nodes that connect with TPACK as a theme, FoK also frequently manifested in teacher-
participants’ interview transcripts and in my recorded memos and field notes during science
video workshops. The online questionnaire revealed three foremost topics under FoK that
teachers heavily used in science: local geography, agriculture, and elders’ beliefs. Teacher-
participants’ initiatives to use FoK in science instruction as discussed in detail in Chapter 5
started way before the K-12 curriculum (RA, 2013) was introduced. However, the new
curriculum is explicit in stating that “the curriculum shall be flexible enough to enable and allow
schools to localize, indigenize and enhance the same based on their respective educational and
social contexts” (p. 4).
The rural schools where junior high science teacher-participants work are potential sites to
bridge science with the culture of the local community. With the vastness of rice fields, root
crops, and vegetable gardens in the rural areas of the city, Ms. G provided opportunities for
students to debate on topics such as the advantages and disadvantages of the use of organic and
inorganic fertilizers. She enriched these debates by inviting local rice farmers to talk in her class.
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In her class, Ms. A used earthquake data from nearby provinces in regions hit by earthquakes in
the past for her students to master the skill of locating earthquakes using triangulation analysis.
The majestic Mt. Kanlaon, the Bago River, and the yearly fiesta and festivities of the city and
province offer rich connections for teachers teaching earth and general science subjects. In
classifying volcanoes as a topic in earth science, Ms. H brought her class just outside their
classroom, asked them to sit on the grass, and invited them to gaze at the grandiose shape of Mt.
Kanlaon; she then let them recall stories from their elders about the volcano’s past eruptions.
From there, she led students to classify popular volcanoes in the region as active, dormant, or
extinct. For Ms. H, “localization in science education is science literacy.”
At another school, Ms. F found that when science concepts are conceptualized vis-à-vis her
students’ realities, “the pacing of discussion is smooth and fast. You can touch more issues and
topics related to one science concept because they can make connections.” Ms. F noted that
when the class understands the discussion, students raise more specific questions and this
circumstance provides opportunities for other students to join in and agree or disagree with
what’s being said. In the works of Kelly and Chen (1999), Lemke (1990), and Mason (1996),
Ms. F’s students’ discussion appears to be an instance of “science learning in terms of the
appropriation of community practices that promote the modes of communication required to
sustain scientific discourse” (as cited in Erduran et al., 2007, p. 4). Moreover, in their book on
argumentation in science education, Erduran et al. (2007) underscore the “importance of
discourse” similar to that of Ms. G’s class with their debates on the use of organic and inorganic
fertilizer or Ms. A’s class with their triangulation of earthquakes as platforms in the
“construction of knowledge” (p. 4). However, the dynamic and animated discussions in Ms. A’s
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class (triangulating earthquakes), Ms. H’s class (identifying types of volcanoes), Ms. K’s class
(watching movies with their teacher as the narrator), and Ms. G’s class (debating the merits of
organic and inorganic fertilizers) were absent in Ms. I’s class, though she also used students’
FoK. In her class, Ms. I asked her students about their ideas on comets. Students were quick
enough to confidently cite their elders; yet when the teacher quizzed them on the scientific
explanation for the occurrence of a comet, all she got was a deafening silence in the room.
According to her, the students were not even listening when she verbally provided the answers to
her own question. Based on the online questionnaire, elders’ beliefs as FoK constituted the third
most common FoK topic that teacher-participants used in their science classes (Figure 16). When
students stood by their elders’ explanations about comets, it reinforced a common tradition
among us Filipinos (and many other cultures)—that is, a deep respect for elders. This supports
what Ingersoll-Dayton and Saengtienchai (1999) found: that despite variations in education and
modernization in the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand, respect for elders is “built
into the social fabric of most Asian countries” (p. 113). This is also indicative of social
relationships (Ho, 1982) and hierarchy in the family (Limanonda, 1995). This is significantly
relevant in Filipino culture, where superstitious beliefs abound in all aspects of people’s lives
(Cabie, 1974).
We Filipinos believe in spirits, and my grandparents warned me that they can make a person sick
or drive him insane. In our region, where all the teacher-participants reside, there has been a
radio program running for years now that talks about Aswang, or evil spirits. My mother once
said that Aswang can suck the blood of a sleeping person in the middle of the night by thrusting
their long tongues through the roof of a house. To return to the dilemma of Ms. I, this teacher
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identified a solution she could use the next time the discussion of comet comes around—namely
to show some diagrams or videos that show comets appearing and disappearing in the sky. Ms.
I’s reservations regarding the use of FoK in science class resonated with the concerns of some
other teacher-participants:
FoK bridges respect between school and community. It enhances my PCK and students’
science literacy and reasoning. However, students’ respect with their elders limits their
understanding of scientific phenomena.
In Ms. I’s case, her use of FoK along with Camtasia and Snagit software in the science video
workshop indicated an increase in her self-assessed TPACK competencies (Figures 33–34). A
similar observation can be made in Ms. C’s case, as Camtasia and Snagit facilitated the audio
recording of her voice as a replacement for narrators with British and American accents.
Specifically, using Taber’s (2005) “teacher-as-learning-doctors” and van Es and Sherin’s (2002)
“Learning to Notice” frameworks, Ms. I started to question how appropriately she uses scientific
terms in her video (e.g., melt vs. dissolve, comet vs. asteroid). Although she had difficulty
arranging her storyboard, she was becoming aware that the more she explores different teaching
strategies to help her students learn, the more she knows her students. She also believed that
when she showed the completed video to her class, the students might be challenged to examine
their elders’ beliefs regarding the appearance of comets and why comets have tails from a
scientific perspective. Ms. I’s video on comets might “spark curiosity” among her students.
However, more than igniting students’ curiosity, Ms. I hypothesized that integrating FoK in
science should lead students to balance scientific and non-scientific conceptions. Igniting
students’ curiosity through a video by “making the familiar unfamiliar and challenging
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misconceptions” (Choe, 2017, p. 11) further enhances teachers’ TPACK and represents as
concrete response to the challenge of a new ICT-centered science pedagogy. The use of FoK
without any educational technology in this study, for the first time, recorded a detached TPACK,
while the use of FoK and technology through video creation for a science class, also for the first
time, proved that TPACK components can be re-connected and expanded. The integration of
FoK and use of technology also led teachers to become consciously aware of the affordances and
constraints of technology (e.g., video).
Teacher-participants believed that using FoK in the long run will help students value the mutual
presence of science and culture in every community, and especially to value the people in their
community. Valuing the richness of community and the people in it is in fact seen in
Chevallard’s (1991) framework as a way of acknowledging that knowledge resides and lives
within groups of people. It was also the cornerstone of Gonzalez et al.’s (2005) book on FoK.
For these authors, “People are competent, they have knowledge, and their life experiences have
given them that knowledge” (p. ix-x). Similar to the teacher-participants’ observations that the
use of FoK facilitates mutual respect and understanding between them and the students,
Gonzalez et al. (2005) signified that valuing the richness of what people have generates
confianza or mutual respect.
While there is a significant body of research in the Philippines on the relevance of cultural
practices in the community vis-à-vis science education for preservice science teachers (Arellano,
Barcenal, Bilbao, Castellano, Nichols, & Tippins, 2001; Handa, 2008; Handa, Tippins, Thomson,
Bilbao, Morano, Hallar, & Miller, 2008; Tippins & Handa, 2010; Handa & Tippins, 2011, 2013),
research on how Filipino practicing science teachers make use of FoK in their classes in the
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context of the new K-12 science curriculum appears to be limited as Morales (2016)
recommended a series of programs integrating Filipino culture and language in science teaching.
6.1.3 Theme 3: Successful Implementation of ICT-centered Science Curriculum and
Pedagogy as Policy and Governance Dependent.
The technology I used in my science and physics class is just a tool that would bridge
learning between me and them. I just wish that ICT investments in public schools should
focus on teachers’ professional training more than delivering computers and gadgets in
schools for students.
Ms. A (Transcript 23/34, Dec. 12, 2018)
In quantitative analysis using EFA, nine items from the questionnaire (Q5–Q13) merged into one
factor (Figure 21) and appeared as an emergent theme. These items revolved around four themes:
professional development, policy, administrative support, and availability of resources. These
four themes were conceptually combined and interpreted as administrative support and
professional development. In qualitative analysis using thematic analysis, there were two
emergent themes (Figure 23) that converged with EFA. These two themes were affordances of
available technology, and policy and governance. By reviewing and re-tracing individual child
nodes under these two emergent themes from thematic analysis and looking into the emergent
theme resulting from the merging of question numbers Q5–Q13 in EFA, I came up with the third
overarching theme positioning policy and governance as critical factor in the successful
implementation of ICT-centered science curriculum and pedagogy.
Based on qualitative analysis, this overarching theme was heavily sourced from teacher-
participants’ comments on how ICT investments should be advanced for their professional
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development. The discussions as presented in Chapter 4 concentrated not on “available ICT
resources” but rather on “appropriate ICT resources” in schools that can be maximized for
students’ learning and teachers’ professional growth. According to the teachers,
“appropriateness” meant ICT investments should concentrate on improving their PCK, especially
related to science subjects they are assigned to teach outside their expertise. It also meant ICTs
should be appropriate in their current school’s physical infrastructure. They could not maximize
the computers available if there is no Internet connection in their school. For example, Ms. A
opted for an LED TV instead of an air conditioning unit as a gift from her former students. With
the monitor fixed on the wall permanently, she has more time and energy to spend on important
instructional tasks such as reviewing her PowerPoint slides. Some of her colleagues at school,
seeing the comfort and benefits of the LED TV monitor compared to a projector lamp, are
gradually following her practice.
In the case of Ms. K, instead of showing science video clips with a British or English presenter to
her students, she has now the option to record her voice using Camtasia. Since her students
would understand her voice better than that of foreign language speakers in the video, she
expects she will save time explaining the contents of the video and be able to focus more on
critical discussions of the content of the video, thus better engaging students and enabling them
to learn more. In the case of Ms. B, in order to compensate for limited textbooks, she can now
use Camtasia and Snagit to make screenshots of textbook pages before annotating and showing
them to her class using her laptop. She can do this by either asking her class to gather around her
table for everyone to see the laptop or projecting the images on an LED TV. However, unlike in
Ms. A’s classroom where a fixed TV monitor is mounted on the wall, Ms. B has to arrange with
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her other six fellow science teachers to switch classrooms to share the TV unit. In order not to
lose much instructional time as they change classrooms in the middle of class, students were
given reflection or guide questions. Similar to the other teachers in the rest of the eight schools I
visited, in Ms. B’s school, teachers have to download online resources in advance at home, since
Internet for classroom use is not available except in the school’s computer learning resource
room. In some schools, the Internet slows down with a higher number of users straining the
minimum Internet capacity of the school’s server.
With the current infrastructure in these schools, what science teachers need most is content and
pedagogy training, a comfortable science teachers’ room with quality reference textbooks, and
laboratory equipment. DepEd has on-going computerization programs delivering ICT packages
in public schools (DepEd, 2019); however, with the lack of Internet access, unstable power
supply, limited ICT training programs for teachers, and demanding teaching loads, computers
might not be maximized for learning.
As a matter of fact, DepEd acknowledged that even if they have the budget for Internet, it would
be useless for schools in rural and remote areas where Internet providers are not present
(Arayata, 2017). This apprehension echoes the World Bank report (2017) which cites studies that
many of the ICT interventions in education “fail or stumble badly before being implemented” (p.
146). The weak and minimal infrastructure in the likes of Ms B’s school, such as limited access
to electricity or Internet connection, has minimal capability to advance computerization
programs. Government departments and agencies aiming for highly visible investments may
miss learning in the classroom since new investments do not consider the current realities of the
school system. In addition, there may be issues with school administrators who are
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unrealistically optimistic regarding the transformative impact of technology in schools (World
Bank, 2017).
Teacher-participants’ comments on the appropriateness of ICT that should be used in their
science and physics classes also aligns with the World Bank Development Report (2017), which
cautions developing nations regarding ICT investments in education. According to this report,
“Technological interventions increase learning only if they enhance the teacher-learner
relationship” (World Bank, 2017, p. 145). For example, computer-based software in Qinghai,
China allowed students to learn at their own pace and adapted to their knowledge of mathematics
(Lai, et al., 2012). In contrast, increasing the availability of instructional materials in schools
does not boost learning if the materials do not bridge teacher-learner engagement (World Bank,
p. 148). For example, as cited earlier, Sabarwal et al. (2014) noted that giving more textbooks in
Sierra Leone in 2008 did not provide more interaction for students and teachers “because
administrators put most of the books in storage—potentially to hedge against future textbook
shortfalls” (as cited by World Bank, 2017, p. 148).
In a separate study by Barrera-Osorio and Linden (2009), an increase in the provision of desktop
computers to classrooms in Colombia did not impact students’ learning since they were not well
integrated in the curriculum. Thus, Behar and Mishra (2018) argued that one of the most
effective uses of technology to attain educational outcomes lies not in getting the technology into
the hands of the learners in the classroom, but rather in maximizing ICT’s potential related to the
professional development of teachers.
As regards the foregrounding of this study on the interplay between DepEd and DICT leadership
involved in the wider implementation of ICT policies and initiatives in education, teacher-
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participants’ discussion did not heavily involve any national issues such as the transition of
DICT, the changes in DepEd leadership, any specific national ICT initiatives, or stakeholders
and donors. The most common theme that kept resurfacing during science video workshops and
informal conversations during snacks and lunch breaks was government ICT investments in
education that should be geared further toward teachers’ professional development.
Another issue that resounded among teacher-participants was how DepEd systems and policies
aligning with local school management could reduce some of teachers’ administrative and
clerical workload (Hernando-Malipot, 2018a; Tomacruz, 2018) and allow them to concentrate
more on teaching and learning aspects. An inquiry made by the Philippine Institute for
Development Studies, a state think tank focusing on research for planning and policy advocacies,
noted that DepEd should re-examine the workload of teachers to improve the delivery of quality
education in public schools (Tomacruz, 2018; Leyco, 2019). Studying secondary English
teachers in Australia, Manuel, Carter, and Dutton (2018) described that increasing the workload
of teachers was “perceived to be the single most determinant factor in impeding English
teachers’ desire to focus on the ‘core business’ of teaching to their best” (p. 5). McGrath-Champ
et al. (2018) further stated that increased administrative workloads are seen as a “blanketing”
effect cutting across “all types of schools, locations, levels of socio-economic advantage … and
severely threaten to overwhelm teachers’ professional focus on teaching and student learning”
(p. 2).
The issues of teachers’ workloads and how school level management addresses teachers’
concerns are parallel to studies published by the World Bank (2017) noting that assurances of
government and school management reforms along with community participation can achieve
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more learning only if they enhance interaction between teachers and learners. Bloom et al.
(2015) observed that well-managed schools produce better student test results. Different schools
have different management styles and qualities. School performance is attributed to effective
school leadership (Robinson et al., 2008; Waters et al., 2003). School principals with effective
leadership styles are actively involved in engaging with teachers to address school-related issues
such as instruction, setting goals and priorities, lesson planning, assessments, classroom
observations, etc. (Bloom et al., 2015).
6.2 Limitations of the Study
The findings of the study are restricted to science teacher-participants and data collection tools
employed in one region of the Philippines. Similarly, the length of my time with the teachers,
types and amount of data gathered and the frameworks and the type of analysis used resulted
from the juxtaposition of my identity as an insider, outsider, and space in-between in relation to
all my teacher-participants in all the schools I visited as discussed on section 3.5.2.
The responses from the online questionnaires from science teachers across DepEd Region VI,
Western Visayas were a self-assessed instrument. Consequent analysis and conclusions are
dependent on the accuracy of the responses. Most of the science teachers complained about
Internet speed and access while they were answering the online questionnaire. Some questions
and portions of the questionnaire were unrecognizable. If not for this issue, the total number of
responses could have resulted in a much higher count than 141.
Due to time constraints and the administrative nature of the work of science school division
supervisors, superintendents, and regional directors, their scheduled interviews were cancelled.
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Moreover, science teachers were showing significant improvements relating to an improved
TPACK and FoK through science video creations. However, future research will need to
examine how video creations could be translated into engaged teaching and learning practices in
the classroom.
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Chapter 7: Conclusions and Implications
This section begins with the discussion of answers to each research question raised in the
beginning of this study and ends with the conclusions and implications of the study.
7.1 Answer to Research Question 1
What are the experiences, including key challenges encountered by rural junior high
school science teachers, during integration of ICT in their science teaching within
Philippine public high schools?
First, as seen from the combination of the three overarching themes—one (TPACK), two (FoK),
and three (policy and governance)—junior high school teacher-participants are faced with a
daunting task of mastering other core science subjects along with corresponding pedagogical
techniques outside their subject expertise. This issue stemmed from DepEd’s new K-12 science
curriculum (RA, 2013), where the content of core science subjects (earth and general science,
biology, chemistry, and physics) is being taught at the public junior high school level on a per
quarter basis. This is a spiral progression approach (SEAMEO, 2012) where the basic content in
a given core science subject are taught in Grade 7 and more complicated concepts introduced
spirally in Grades 8, 9, and 10. Each core science subject is a specialized field. However, science
teachers were trained in only one core science subject. This issue of incongruence, of assigning
teachers to teach outside their specialization, had been reported years prior to the implementation
of the new K-12 curriculum.
Citing the University of the Philippines National Institute for Science and Mathematics
Education Development studies, Brawner (2011) reported that many practicing science teachers
are non-science major graduates. These teachers were reported to have difficulty understanding
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concepts like electricity and chemical changes and reactions, and with less confidence to teach
such content, they tended to concentrate only on topics they were conversant with. The “most
alarming” part of the report was that students who gained the highest scores in the Trends
International Science and Mathematics Study (TIMSS) 2003 performed better than their teachers
when these teachers, for research analysis, took the same test. Hence, if viewed in terms of the
teacher-participants’ profiles from a region-wide perspective, the issue of teachers needing to
have sound pedagogical and content knowledge (Shulman, 1996) on science subjects that they
are teaching is completely valid.
Data (Figure 9) on the subject taught and the number of years clearly shows that regardless of the
science subjects taught, most of the teachers were in their early years of teaching. The
overwhelming majority of teachers were in their 1st to 3rd year of teaching experience followed
by those in their 4th–6th year. These groups of teachers apparently need support similar to what
the Ontario College of Teachers’ (2003) study reported— namely, that even if new teachers are
“incredibly passionate” about teaching, first and second year teachers in particular were given
the most taxing teaching assignments with some asked to teach subjects they were not prepared
for, and as a result had high levels of stress and were at risk of quitting their positions, and thus
needed immediate help. New teachers need support because their teacher education programs
cannot substantially prepare them for the emerging demands of the teaching profession
(Heikkinen, Jokinen, & Tynjälä, 2008). They need support in professional competencies
(Conway et al., 2009) and pedagogical mastery (Kane & Francis, 2013). Indeed, the supports
they receive in their first years of teaching are highly essential for their career-long
professionalism (Harju & Niemi, 2018).
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Second, although the issue of insufficient and limited ICT and other instructional resources in
public and rural schools is a prevailing concern in the country (Lapus, 2006; del Rosario, 2007;
Bonifacio, 2013; Vergel de Dios, 2016; Pingol, 2016; Mateo, 2019), science teachers highlighted
not “the [in]availability of ICT resources” but rather the “appropriateness of ICT resources” that
can be maximized for students’ learning and teachers’ professional growth. Teachers have
laptops, but only a very few have projectors in their classrooms. In fact, teacher-participants the
likes of Ms. A use LED TV monitors purchased on their own initiative, while most of the
teachers have to gather their students around their table at the center of the classroom to view
presentations from their laptops. Other teachers have to exchange classrooms if they need to use
the wide TV monitor as they have only one unit available for the seven of them in the
department. They need to download online resources from their homes in advance, since they
have weak or no Internet access at school. Most of the schools have computer laboratories, but
these are only for computer classes and administrative purposes. Even if science teachers can
manage to reserve the room for their class, Internet speed is still an issue.
DepEd is delivering more ICT packages in public schools as part of its on-going computerization
programs, (DepEd, 2019); however, with the lack of Internet access, unstable power supply,
limited ICT training programs for teachers, and demanding teaching loads, computers might not
be maximized for learning. As a matter of fact, DepEd acknowledged that even if they have
budget for Internet, it would be useless for schools in rural and remote areas where Internet
providers are not present (Arayata, 2017). The World Bank report (2017) remarked that in order
for ICT interventions to be effective, they should be implemented within the current school
system’s available infrastructures and enhance the teaching and learning process.
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Third, DepEd’s on-going computerization programs delivering more ICT packages in public
schools (DepEd, 2019) is welcomed by teacher-participants. However, teachers frequently
mentioned in interviews and science video workshops the importance of investing in
“appropriate ICT resources” for their professional development such as ICT competency and
content and pedagogical knowledge. For them, one way of reducing the digital divide between
students and teachers is to prioritize teachers more than students in ICT investments. Although
they were not aware of any specific national standard on ICT competency for teachers like them,
they need specific training for specific ICT skills that have immediate relevance to their science
classes and students. Teacher-participants noticed that computers occupied spaces in their school
faster than the delivery of professional training in ICT for them.
In 2017, Abanil, the current DepEd ICT director, confirmed that DepEd will boost ICT in public
schools in 2018 and is at the same time in the process of compiling teachers’ profiles to define
their ICT competencies and match them with appropriate training (Arayata, 2017). This
observation was similarly pointed out by Trucano (2016) in his report for the World Bank
Education, Technology & Innovation paper series. He stressed that in terms of providing ICT-
related training for teachers, support for teachers is “often deemphasized in the early stages of
ICT rollouts” (p. 4). However, he further clarified that over time, implementing agencies
“slowly invest in related technical and pedagogical professional development for teachers” (p. 4).
Fourth, teacher-participants were also in agreement that the use of FoK in their science classes
raises students’ awareness, understanding, and valuing of science concepts, community, and
people. By using local data on past earthquakes, Ms. A extended discussion from conceptual
earth science contents to mathematics and community preparedness during calamities, raising
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issues such as the structural integrity of houses. Ms. G’s students debates on the use of organic
and inorganic fertilizers expanded into discussions of issues that touched their family’s
livelihood and future sustenance as well as the environment and sustainability. Ms. H’s activity
on classifying volcanoes allowed students to literally watch a real volcano in their midst,
constituting FoK as science literacy. Such critical engagements among students are crucial to
“sustaining scientific discourse” and “construction of knowledge,” as Erduran et al. (2007)
collectively call argumentation in science education. In contrast, Ms. I’s invocation of elders’
beliefs about comets made her class excited to talk about their grandparents, but when science
was included in the discussion of comets, students disengaged from the discussion. As teacher-
participants observed, FoK may enhance their PCK and students’ science literacy, but the use of
FoK may also be a threat to developing students’ scientific literacy and science argumentation
skills. For Ms. I to reconnect and re-establish mutual respect and trust (Gonzalez et al., 2005)
with her students, community, and science, she needs to understand how students and the
community adhere to elders’ position in the community (Ho, 1982; Limanonda, 1995; Ingersoll-
Dayton & Saengtienchai, 1999).
In what ways are the encountered experiences related to (a) curriculum and pedagogy and
(b) PD?
For curriculum and pedagogy, teacher-participants’ requests for training to master other core
science subjects’ PCK are associated with the extent of engagement they shared during
interviews, and further resurfaced during the science video workshop sessions and breaks in
between. The whole process of video workshops (pre-production, production, and post-
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production) was a window for me to examine science teachers’ TPACK and the extent of their
FoK integration. Using Taber’s (2005) metaphor of the “teacher-as-learning-doctor,” teacher-
participants’ were able to identify key conceptions and misconceptions related to how they use
scientific concepts and strategies in their videos. Their recognition of using terms like melts and
dissolves, comet and asteroid, weight and mass, etc. interchangeably indicates that like their
students, they have also some misconceptions. By identifying these misconceptions, they are
able to “diagnose” learning impediments or learning “bugs” (Taber, 2005). The fact that the
teachers were able to relate such learning impediments to wider conceptual and pedagogical
contexts means they are able to develop the skill van Es and Sherin (2002) call “noticing.” In van
Es and Sherin’s (2002) “Learning to Notice” framework, being able to notice and interpret an
important event or experience in teaching and connect it to broader education principles are
“important skills for teaching in the context of reform” (p. 572). Likewise, teachers’ difficulty in
developing a storyboard to retell the story of their video that would address students’ realities
does not represent an uncommon struggle for teachers. In fact, the process helps teachers
themselves to question their own PCK and at the same time expands their knowledge about each
of their students’ needs. Koumi (2015) calls this process a means for teachers to enhance their
cognitive engagement, constructive reflection, and collaborative learning skills.
As to the nature of professional development, teacher-participants’ need for further professional
training to improve their ICT competency as they teach other core science subjects outside their
specialization was further validated during science video workshop sessions. My personal
assessment of teacher-participants’ level of ICT adoption (Figure 32) as related to the extent of
their ICT usage and competency throughout the workshop sessions shows that teachers have
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higher awareness (emerging stage) of the potentials of ICT to enhance science instruction as
matched in the thematic coding analysis of their positive beliefs and attitudes about ICT and its
impact on pedagogy. However, as stages of ICT usage move higher, teachers’ scores indicate
that they have very minimal usage in applying, integrating, and transforming. This finding
supports several studies that suggest the need for public school teachers to undergo further
training related to ICT (Bonifacio, 2013; Vergel de Dios, 2017; Caluza, et al., 2017; Caluza,
2018).
Moreover, although video creation was a time-consuming process that involved a learning curve
(with the added constraints of available facilities), teacher-participants were highly receptive to
science video-creation workshop sessions as one form of professional development. It is seen as
one purposeful platform for using appropriate technology for instruction (Milner-Bolotin, 2016).
Examined further through the lens of TPACK (Koehler, Mishra, & Cain, 2013), teachers
developed skills to communicate and reflect, and in the process acquired critical media literacy,
communication, and presentation skills (Choe, 2017). I argue that these skills are what teachers
should equip themselves with as they integrate FoK in their science classes to counteract the
threat of worsening students’ scientific literacy and argumentation skills (Erduran et al., 2007).
Equally, with a pool of teachers possessing such skills, video-creation workshops can be initiated
as one platform of professional development among teachers of science and other subject under
DepEd’s Learning Action Cell (LAC) (DepEd LAC). Video-creation workshops integrating FoK
can also be added as a “mentoring the mentors” approach to support DepEd’s Last Mile Schools
program (Hernando-Malipot, 2019d). The Last Mile program is DepEd’s initiative of reaching
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out to geographically isolated, disadvantaged, and conflict-affected areas to provide them with
equal access to quality education.
In relation to the encountered experiences of science-teacher participants that overlap between
curriculum and pedagogy and professional development, three highly crucial findings were
advanced. First was the ability of teachers to (i) overcome “functional fixedness” of a technology
and (ii) explore more creative ways such technology can function to improve science teaching
and learning practices. This time, video technology vis-à-vis video-creation is not only used for
students to learn science concepts but for teachers to create science stories, brainstorm how to
diagnose learning impediments, perform voice recording, annotate visual aids, etc. With limited
ICT resources in rural schools, the ability to overcome “functional fixedness” of a technology is
highly welcomed. Second was the first documentation of a detached TPACK and expanded
TPACK with the integration of FoK and ICT through science video creation by rural junior high
school teachers. While the advent of newer educational technology influences the growth of
teachers’ TPACK, the use of FoK and technology to expand science teachers’ TPACK stands as
a significant contribution of this study to science education research. Third was when teachers
started to become critical users of technology by identifying the affordances and constraints of
technology as applied in science education.
How are the experiences, especially the key challenges (a) transformed into enablers of
dissemination of good practices and (b) informative of both institutional and government
level policy frameworks?
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Teacher-participants’ struggles to integrate ICT in the new K-12 science curriculum despite
limited resources allowed them to develop social resiliency and transformed them into new K-12
enablers in rural areas. Resilience is a physics term, from the Latin word resilia (to bounce
back). Using the Charpy Test, a material’s relative toughness is measured by determining how
much impact energy it can absorb while breaking (Chellappa, 2017). Applied in psychology,
resilience is the ability of an individual to adapt to stress and difficulties and to bounce back
(Boquet, 2017). Social resilience as applied to teacher-participants means the ability of teachers
as a department or as peers to cope with everyday difficulties in rural schools like having limited
teaching resources or a weak Internet signal as they are trying to send important documents to
DepEd office, etc. In a local context, the social resiliency of teachers is akin to a group of
bamboo trees standing still against the strong winds, as in Flavier’s description (1970) of rural
reconstruction workers:
Do you notice the graceful, stately bamboo? Its strength does not lie in its height but in its
hollowness. It means it is ever hungry for knowledge, as there is much to learn. Then, it
knows how to bend with the wind and does not break. (p. 84)
Select junior high school science teacher-participants may have not full mastery of all the core
science subjects they were assigned to teach. However, they do not stop learning and teaching,
and they always bend and bounce back despite challenges they face in schools every day. Their
social resiliency has transformed them into resourceful innovators as well as enablers.
Enabling practices range from Ms. A.’s use of an LED TV monitor sourced from her former
students, to holding a science or environmental pageant or camp and using the proceeds to buy
teaching resources, to science teachers gathering together in a makeshift faculty room for ease of
sharing content and pedagogical practices, to providing students with creative activities like
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answering reflection questions during the transition period when teachers exchange classrooms
to use a TV monitor, etc. During and after the science video workshops, teachers identified a
number of potential uses of Camtasia and Snagit. To address the issue of limited textbooks in her
science class, Ms. B. makes screenshots of textbook content, and then annotates and projects
them on the LED TV monitor. Ms. C uses the software to record her voice to replace narration
by British and English presenters. The lists and discussions of teachers’ enabling practices were
discussed in detail in pages under Theme 1: Enablers. These teachers’ initiatives appear to reflect
elements of teacher efficacy and altruistic motives (Campbell, 1990-1991), which in Smith and
Strahan’s (2001) research on identifying a prototype category of expert teachers indicate
“teachers who have a sense of confidence in themselves and in their profession” (p. 364). There
are several venues at school and division levels that can help spread teachers’ enabling ideas and
practices.
In a school level context, regular administrative faculty meetings, subject area meetings, and
department head meetings could serve as platforms for sharing and conversation. In a school
division level context, department heads and school principals could help scale up teachers’
enabling practices to other schools through the presence of school division superintendents and
subject area supervisors. Another prospective avenue to disseminate teachers’ enabling ideas is
DepEd’s in-school professional development training called Learning Action Cell. Teachers who
are becoming experts in science video creation could create video clubs where they mentor other
teachers during cell sessions on how to create videos. Over time, teachers’ video outputs can be
synthesized into a pool or database of locally-based videos. The database can then be shared to
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schools and used during in-service trainings. As mentioned above, these videos can also be sent
to remote and isolated rural schools under the DepEd’s Last Miles Schools program.
On an institutional and policy level, the mitigation of the challenges faced by teacher-participants
should start with a clarification of the definition for ICT. As early as 2008 (Flor, 2008), it has
been recommended that DepEd should address an expanded definition of ICT at a policy level.
Noting the mixed realities of public schools across the archipelago in urban, rural, and remote
areas, an ICT definition should cover everything from high end (digital devices) to low end
(analog devices) (Flor, 2008).
In 2019, the issue of an expanded definition of ICT is observable in the context of public and
rural science teachers in this study. How DepEd and its teachers define ICT has considerable
impacts on curriculum, pedagogy, and policy implementations. For example, when teacher-
participants speak of “appropriate ICT resources” rather than “availability of resources,” teachers
know what they need. They know that they need a stable Internet connection, a wide projector,
and quality science reference books. But when DepEd delivers ICT packages as part of its
Computerization and Internet Connectivity Program, DepEd sends computer laboratory packages
(desktop PC, wireless broadband router, uninterrupted power supply (UPS), inkjet printer, set of
basic software and hardware), multimedia classroom packages (PC, LCD monitor, keyboard and
mouse, interactive whiteboard, etc.), and tablet PC packages (DepEd, 2010; Santos, 2018). A
quick review of several meanings of ICT shows a clear disparity between DepEd and
Department of Information, Communication and Technology’s definition of ICT and that of
teacher-participants. According to Republic Act No. 10844 also known as DICT Act of 2015
(RA, 2016), ICT shall mean “the totality of electronic means to access, create, collect, store,
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process, receive, transmit, present, and disseminate information” (p. 1). According to other
sources, ICT is an umbrella term for several media used in communicating information. In an
educational context, according to this definition, ICT may cover computers, the Internet,
television broadcasts, and even printed or handwritten notes (Oxford Dictionary, 2011;
Butterfield & Ngondi, 2016). OECD (2018) categorized ICT as having three components:
information technology equipment which includes computers and related hardware,
communications equipment, and software. In addition, the definition of ICT is a “conceptual and
methodological” problem as discussed by Livingstone (2012), which invites “confusion of
diverse forms of educational technology under the umbrella term” (p. 13). Livingstone (2012)
continues by saying that having different forms of ICT in different contexts of usage results in
confusion and difficulty in “distinguish[ing] which aspects of technologically-mediated learning,
if any, are effective in any particular situation” (p. 13).
7.4 Conclusions
This descriptive case study centered on the Philippines DepEd’s new K-12 curriculum and ICT
initiatives. Based on the findings from the combined quantitative and qualitative analyses, the
following conclusions are advanced:
TPACK as a foundational professional development enabler. One of the most common
challenges of select public and rural junior high school teacher-participants is the daunting task
of mastering other core science subjects along with corresponding pedagogical techniques
outside their subject expertise. The level of content and pedagogical mastery and preparation,
even with their specialized core science subject, puts limits on how they can use ICT in teaching
and learning. This is true despite the common understanding that their rural schools are facing a
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shortage of educational technology resources to use. Yet these key challenges have allowed them
to develop social resiliency and sustained creativity. To recall some concrete proofs, Ms. A was
able to outsource her LED TV from her former students, Ms. B and her co-teachers exchanged
classrooms when they needed to use a single TV monitor fixed in one classroom, and Ms. B used
Camtasia to create screenshots for visual aids while Ms. C recorded her voice as a narrator and
interpreter in a video. Similar to other science video creation teacher-participants, Ms. B and Ms.
C realized that a technology (e.g., video software) can have several functions beyond creating a
science video. Indeed, these rural science teachers have shown that they have had several
experiences of overcoming technology’s functional fixedness. Experiences of overcoming
fixation on what a particular technology’s “perceived” function is (e.g., video) and starting to
explore more creative ways such technology can function to improve teaching and learning
practice are indications of professional growth.
The added value of overcoming functional fixedness of technology is that teachers are led to
identify the affordances and constraints of a given educational technology in a rural school
setting. Having a single LED TV in a school fixed in one classroom restricts science teachers
from using a video or any media for their class. So, when Ms. B wanted to use a TV for her
science class, she negotiated with teachers to exchange classrooms even in the middle of class.
The perspective of overcoming technology’s functional fixedness is, in fact, akin to some local
practices among teachers in school or at home. They have a morning coffee packed in a sachet as
a “2 in 1” or “3 in 1.” The sachet holds not only the coffee but also the creamer and sugar. They
also prepare their packed lunch for school by arranging the rice, fried egg, and hotdogs or fish all
in one container. Like a coffee sachet, a container is seen to function not only by holding the
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rice, but also by accommodating portions of other foods for lunch without the need to use
another container of a different size and shape.
Similarly, teachers like Ms. A carry with them a common philosophy in life that everything boils
down to diskarte, a Filipino word for craftmanship or ingenuity. In a rural classroom context,
overcoming technology’s “perceived” function reduces rural school teachers’ perennial problem
of having limited educational resources. It drives the teachers to inquire into and explore
different ways of using whatever technology they have in school to serve the different demands
of the new K-12 curriculum and pedagogy. This is a distinct indicator of the growth of science
teachers’ TPACK.
FoK as a bridge to enhance teachers’ TPACK. Integrating FoK in science class poses an extra
challenge. Though it binds students to valuing science concepts, community, and people, its use
also may represent a threat against the development of students’ scientific literacy and science
argumentation skills. To address the balance, teacher-participants should be mindful in
acknowledging students’ cultural beliefs (e.g., respect for elders) while introducing scientific
concepts using ICT like locally based science videos.
Teacher-made science videos can enhance teachers’ TPACK and FoK and in turn boost students’
science literacy and argumentation skills. The pre-production through post-production of science
video creation workshops allowed the science teachers to develop the skills to identify, examine,
and relate teaching and learning impediments to wider curricular and pedagogical issues. These
skills were also observed among science teachers who used Taber’s (2005) metaphor of the
“teacher-as-learning-doctor” and math teachers who framed their video observations using van
Es and Sherin’s (2002) “Learning to Notice” frameworks. Moreover, for the first time, this study
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has shown that science teachers’ TPACK can be detached, expanded, and reconnected while
integrating FoK in their science classes. A detached TPACK is a disservice to quality science
teaching, while an expanded TPACK potentially support teachers’ PD in teaching and learning,
particularly when ICT and FoK are used simultaneously in science video creation. This study
showed that the expansion of TPACK due to an outside component (use of FoK) disrupts a well-
established precept of TPACK that tell us that TPACK components are in “a state of dynamic
equilibrium” and a change in any of the factors or components has to be “compensated by”
changes in the other two (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, p. 1029). Teacher-made science videos as a
practiced-based PD program have the capacity to foster measurable learning for teachers. If
science video creation works for science teachers, then teachers in other STEM fields can most
likely benefit from it as well. Apparent growth of science teachers’ TPACK through science
video creation from this study was also seen in several research studies showing that use of
technology like video in a deliberate manner enhance teachers’ peer collaboration, cognitive
engagement, and constructive reflection (Koumi, 2015; Choe, 2017; Mliner-Bolotin, 2016, 2019;
Tembrevilla & Milner-Bolotin, 2019). Over time, looking at the new K-12 curriculum in the
Philippines, the science video creation workshops could lead to an expanded “video clubs” as a
form of PD program under the DepEd’s Learning Action Cell.
The successful implementations of ICT-centered science curriculum and pedagogy as
policy and governance dependent. Rural junior high school science teachers were receptive to
the use of ICT in their classes. They had positive beliefs and attitudes toward the potential of ICT
to improve learning outcomes. However, teachers highlighted not “the limited availability of ICT
resources” but rather the “appropriateness of ICT resources” that they can maximize for their
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professional growth and their students’ learning. Another issue was the scope of definition of
ICT. Does ICT cover older and low tech forms like books, or does it cover only high tech and
purely digital forms? How does such definition and scope of ICT address the actual needs of
rural school teachers, which are distinctly different from teachers in urban schools? At an
institutional and policy level, the mitigation of the challenges faced by teacher-participants
should start with a clarification of the definition for ICT. How DepEd leaders and its teachers
define ICT has considerable impacts on curriculum, pedagogy, and policy implementations.
Different definitions imply different interpretations. The differences in interpretation in turn
result in a different focus in policy implementation, investments, and recommendations. All of
these challenges lie with institutional policy on ICT initiatives’ terms and implementations, and
the solutions to successful implementation are policy and governance dependent.
7.5 Research Implications
Theory
With the diverse scope of ICTs as used in teaching and learning, a definitive description of what
and how specific ICT improves instruction or not should be properly delineated. Teachers’
comments on needing “appropriate ICT resources” in schools are partly related to a mismatch of
what DepEd delivers in its ICT initiative known as the Computerization and Internet
Connectivity Program. Flor (2008) observed that there are ICTs that are more appropriate in
rural schools than in urban schools. As pointed out by Livingstone (2012), there are “diverse
forms of educational technology under the umbrella term ICT,” and if research claims that ICT
enhances learning, “it is difficult to distinguish which aspects of technologically-mediated
learning, if any, are effective in any particular situation” (p. 13). The Philippine Department of
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Information and Communication Technology’s definition of ICT is seemingly applied by DepEd
though not completely applicable to the context.
In the context of education, ICT does not only mean the “totality of electronic means to access,
create… [and] disseminate information” (RA, 2016, p. 1), but may include even “printed and
handwritten notes” (Oxford Dictionary, 2011; Butterfield & Ngondi, 2016). This definition of
ICT fits, for example, science teacher-participants’ requests for quality science reference books
as part of what they meant by “appropriate ICT resources.” The importance of defining ICT
based on agreed upon principles and perspectives should not be underestimated. Different
definitions of ICT will lead to different policy investments, implementations, and
recommendations (Glewwe et al., 1988; Flor, 2008).
Curriculum and Pedagogy
ICT is a welcome tool in schools, but for teachers in rural schools, content and pedagogy should
come first, followed by technology. The first initial letter in TPACK stands for “Technology”
and is meant for easy recall only; for any ICT policies in education to be impactful, content and
pedagogy—the PCK in TPACK—should be in line first, with technology following. However, as
researchers have noted (Flor, 2008; Lubin, 2018), most bilateral ICT initiatives among developed
and developing countries funded by international donors and organizations are not primarily
curricular and pedagogy-driven; that is, they are not based on teachers’ priority needs but rather
on donors’ and technology-providers’ agendas. If there is a paucity of empirical and research-
based evidence on teaching, teachers, and individual schools’ current systems and
infrastructures, then any ICT policies implemented in the context of education will have reduced
impacts on teaching and learning in schools (Trucano, 2016).
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One lesson learned from the experiences of teacher-participants is that, first and foremost, ICT
policies and initiatives in education should invest more in teaching and teachers (Behar &
Mishra, 2018). Although Trucano (2016) noticed that across government, state, and
implementing agencies, teachers are sidelined in initial ICT initiative implementations, the
World Bank (2017) argues that any technological interventions can strengthen learning only if
they boost the teaching and learning process. Some findings from this study, for example, (1)
having LED TV monitor in the classroom was a valuable device in teaching and learning in rural
schools; (2) the science video-creation as a practiced-based PD was an effective form of PD in
rural schools; and (3) rural school teachers could expand their TPACK with the use of students’
FoK along with ICT, independently complement the World Bank’s (2017) argument that in order
to boost curricular and pedagogical innovation in rural schools, ICT investments should match
the current system and infrastructure of schools and preparation of teachers.
Looking at the current educational systems around the world impacted by the Covid-19
pandemic, the urgency to overcome technological, pedagogical, and curricular infrastructure
barriers to fill in teaching and learning gaps with school closures is overwhelmingly felt. The
current crisis has exposed an older problem that many teachers, either in urban or rural, have
“rarely had a chance to acquire the required twenty-first century skills” (Ben-David Kolikant,
Martinovic, & Milner-Bolotin, 2020, p. 3). From teacher education programs to actual teaching
practices, research has shown that there is a need to understand, particularly for teachers, how to
support them to acquire twenty-first century skills like collaborative and critical thinking skills
with ICT to participate in “mutually supportive, online, and physically situated learning spaces”
(Gomez & Lee, 2015, p. 649). Teaching and teachers in this time of uncertainty need a holistic
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approach of combining deliberate use of ICT, teachers’ PD, and administrative support.
However, such approach is also matched with resistance in the form of limited ICT resources,
teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward the use of technology in class, and inconsistent
administrative support and leadership.
Future Research
As early as the 1950s, the Philippine Sociological Society observed that rural high school
education was the most critical area of education (Coller, 1954). It served as an “agency for the
reduction of rural-urban differences” (Coller, 1954, p. 2) by standing mid-way between the
barrio elementary school (traditionally familistic) and the college or university (generally
urbanistic and individualistic). Though the use of FoK and ICT in science video-creation in this
study had shown that rural junior high school teachers were capable to develop students’ science
argumentation and literacy, there is a need to consider the quality and sustainability of such PD.
In fact, recent study warned that since there were limited understandings on science literacy
across racial and ethnic groups (NAS, 2016), “educational interventions need to measure, and
target, not just the quantity of instruction and formal qualifications…but also quality” (Alum,
Besley, Gomez, & Brunton-Smith, 2018, p. 862).
Rural public high schools are generally viewed as passive, marginal, ignorant, and pathological
(Woodrum, 2011). For Theobald and Wood (2010), “rural equals backward is an old cultural
message, but its age hasn’t diminished its utility” (p. 31). Yet in this study, the rural schools
where teacher-participants work and live are resourceful and resilient. The limited teaching
resources in schools transformed teachers into innovative enablers. In their research on poverty
and school achievement in rural communities, Howley and Howley (2010) found that people
191
living in rural communities are “astoundingly productive” and “self-provisioning” (p. 35). The
old stereotype pointed out by Theobald and Wood (2010) is legitimizing “policy measures that
are demonstrably unfair to rural locales” (p. 31).
Despite the fact that rural communities are sidelined by policies, the rural school teachers in this
study are mostly receptive to new ideas. They have rich ideas, and that makes them valuable.
They widely accepted the science video creation workshops. These workshops can generate
professional groups like video clubs in their schools. With proper training and consistent support
from schools, these video clubs will be the training grounds for public and rural school teachers
to further integrate FoK. Likewise, creating videos with colleagues will potentially enhance their
TPACK competency through peer collaborations (Milner-Bolotin, 2019). Over time, a pool of
expert teachers in video creation would grow and could serve as mentors for PD among
colleagues in school and division level Learning Action Cells. These teachers can also be tapped
to reach out to remote and isolated rural schools as a support to DepEd’s Last Mile Schools
program.
For sustainability and continuity, the pool of expert teachers across subject areas and school
divisions could create sets of locally based videos that can be organized and managed as a
database of teaching and professional development training resources. Science video creation as
a professional development tool for teachers in public and rural schools might add to the limited
literature valuing rural schools as places of innovation for collaboration and alternatives of
pedagogical effectiveness (Schafft & Jackson, 2010; Stelmach, 2011; Tieken, 2014). Further
enabling rural school teachers, may it be in developing countries like the Philippines or in
developed countries like Canada, to transform rural education through informed policy in the
192
implementation of ICT-based PD, enhanced curriculum and pedagogy, and strong administrative
support can (1) help address calls for equity, diversity, and inclusion in education brought about
by rapid economic, political, and cultural globalization and (2) reshape 21st century digital
society, extremely relevant to the current times with the Covid-19 pandemic.
193
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225
Appendices
Appendix A : Full Survey Questionnaire
226
227
228
229
230
Appendix B : Interview and Focus Group Questions
231
Appendix C : Science Video-Creation Workshop
232
Appendix D : UBC Behavioural Ethics Approval
Appendix E : External Approvals: Division and Region VI
233
Appendix F : Invitation Letter
234
Appendix G : Consent Letter
235
236
Appendix H : Observation Protocol Matrix
Level of Adoption A B C D E F G H I J
&Indicator / Teacher
Emerging:
Becoming aware of the 40-45 40-45 46-50 46-50 40-45 40-45 40-45 40-45 46-50 46-50
potentials of ICT in
education
* realize which science Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
content ICT can be of used
* identify specific ICT tool Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
can be used
*believed/convinced that Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
ICT can support student
learning
Applying:
Beginning to learn how to 20-24 26-30 26-30 26-30 26-30 20-25 20-25 20-25 36-40 30-35
use ICT for teaching and
learning
* use laptop for power Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
point presentation
* use laptop for Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
PowerPoint presentation
* use software programs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
(e.g., Word) for science
Integrating:
ICT is used and matched 6-10 6-10 1-5 1-5 1-5 1-5 1-5 1-5 16-20 16-20
into the curriculum
* specify ICT tool for Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
specific lesson coverage
* outline specific science No No No No No No No No Yes Yes
contents and strategy for
ICT to be used
* outline specific science No No No No No No No No No No
contents and strategy for
ICT to be used
Transforming:
Innovation and
development of new ways 1-5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1-5 1-5
of teaching and learning
using ICT
* create inquiry-based Yes No No No No No No No Yes yes
activity where use of ICT
is crucial
* encourage students to No No No No No No No No No No
create applications and
solutions with the use of
ICT
* challenge students to No No No No No No No No No No
explain and communicate
science concepts\ with ICT
237

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Examining ICT and FoK integration in Rural Public Junior High Schools

with the Philippines’ New K-12 Curriculum: A Case Study

Gerald Gallego Tembrevilla

BSE, West Visayas State University, 1998

MA, Okayama University, 2012

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

© Gerald Gallego Tembrevilla, 2020

submitted by Gerald Gallego Tembrevilla in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin

Dr. Samson Nashon

Dr. Patricia Duff

Dr. Stephen Petrina

Dr. Chih Shen Lo

Dr. Xavier Fazio

successful implementations of ICT-centred science curriculum and pedagogy as policy- and

governance-dependent. These findings described the contained experiences of science teachers

of educational resources is a perennial problem, prevailing over a state of functional fixedness

along with students’ FoK through science video-creation.

alternatives of pedagogical effectiveness.

documented an expansion in science teachers’ knowledge related to technology, pedagogy, and

alternatives of pedagogical effectiveness.

from Drs. Marina Milner-Bolotin, Samson Nashon, and Patricia Duff.

with UBC BREB Number: H18-02992.

Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii

List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ xi

List of Figures............................................................................................................................. xiii

Dedication ................................................................................................................................... xvi

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study ..........................................................................................1

1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Context ............................................................................................................................ 4

1.3 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................ 10

1.4 Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 12

1.5 Significance of the Study .............................................................................................. 13

1.6 Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 14

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Framework....................................................16

2.1 Emerging Policies on the Use of ICT in Education ...................................................... 16

2.2 Use of ICT from SITES’ Surveys: International Perspectives ..................................... 18

2.3 Issues in the Use of ICT in Education .......................................................................... 22

2.4 ICT in Education: The Case of the Philippines ............................................................ 24

2.6 DepEd New K-12 Curriculum ...................................................................................... 30

2.7 TPACK and FoK as Complementary Frameworks ...................................................... 31

3.1 The Study ...................................................................................................................... 37

3.2 Descriptive Case Study ................................................................................................. 38

3.3 Case Study as a Research Design ................................................................................. 41

3.3.1 Research Questions ............................................................................................... 42

3.3.2 Study Propositions ................................................................................................ 42

3.3.3 The Unit of Analysis and Case Selection ............................................................. 43

3.3.4 Data Collection Procedures................................................................................... 47

3.3.4.1 Quantitative Methods ........................................................................................ 48

Development and Deployment of the Questionnaire ........................................................ 48

3.3.4.2 Qualitative Methods: Interviews, Workshops, and Notes ................................ 57

3.3.5 Data Analysis Techniques..................................................................................... 63

3.3.5.1 Quantitative Data Analysis: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)..................... 63

3.3.5.2 Qualitative Data Analysis: Thematic Analysis ................................................. 67