A phenomenology of ICT scarcity: A lived experience of instructional leaders

• Main Author: Adanza, Jonathan R.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/391
• Institution: De La Salle University

Amidst the widespread use of information and communication technology, instructional leaders of the Philippine Basic Education, particularly the public schools are still experiencing scarcity of this technology. Through hermeneutic phenomenology of Van Manen, this study aims to holistically understand how instructional leaders lived through the phenomenon of scarcity of ICT in Basic Education in selected public schools in the country. From five key informants who are principals, head teachers, and master teachers, a rich description of the experience provides the structure of the phenomenon under study. This phenomenological study extracted interwoven themes that surround ICT scarcity. These themes are “Facets of Scarcity: Are These Enough for Us?”, “Cohorts of Scarcity: Are They for Us or Against Us?”, and “Initiatives in Scarcity: Can These Sustain Us?” These captured the essence of the experienced phenomenon that besets various public elementary schools in the country today. An eidetic model emerged from the study, which is called “See-Saw Model of ICT Scarcity.” The experiences of key informants suggest that the phenomenon of scarcity is in a see-saw reality which is a balancing act between ICT utilization and integration and that of ICT scarcity. ICT scarcity carries the burden of different aspects and dimensions of scarcity, captured in the theme “facets of scarcity.” Scarcity, which is an important concept in economics, is a vast reality that can never be outweighed, unless educational leaders do something to strike the balance—the “initiatives in scarcity.”