Teachers at the forefront of educational change: A mixed methods study of academic track teachers undergoing a career transition to senior high school in the Philippines

• Main Author: Enverga, Elizabeth R.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2021
• Subjects: High school teachers; Educational change; Curriculum change
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdd_elmd/6; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=etdd_elmd
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study examined the experiences of teachers who began to handle senior high school students and courses, at a time when the Philippine educational policy had just implemented senior high school levels into the curriculum. The study’s two main research questions are as follows: (1) What are the transition experiences of new senior high school teachers who taught different levels of education? (2) Is the emergent qualitative model validated in the quantitative data gathered from other teachers in the field? Applying the “approaching transitions” framework discussed by Schlossberg (2011) and Anderson et al. (2011), the study focused on the context, type, and impact of the teachers’ experiences. Using the framework, the new senior high school teachers’ transitioning experiences using a sequential exploratory design was analyzed. The study started with a qualitative phase of data collection and analysis, followed by a quantitative one. The first stage involved 19 participants from private and public senior high schools in the Philippines. They provided the data during the three focus group discussions. The information they provided became the basis for constructing a survey questionnaire, which was then distributed to 100 respondents from private and public senior high schools in the Philippines. The questionnaires were analyzed using statistical tools. The qualitative data collection and analysis yielded five emergent themes, which are: (1) Factors Driving Transition, (2) Teaching and Work Adjustments, (3) Relating with Senior High School Students, (4) Dealing with Administrators, and Parents, (5) Satisfaction with Career Transition. Only the first, second, and fifth were validated in the quantitative phase. The categories of Teaching and Workload Adjustments and Dealing with Colleagues, Administrators, and Parents were not fully confirmed because the questions on the topics were too general to reflect the nuanced aspects of the experience. This study’s rich set of data, combined with the “approaching transitions” framework that was applied, allowed the researcher to understand the nature of the career transition towards becoming a senior high school teacher when the grade levels were first introduced into the basic education curriculum of the Philippines. Although the frameworks of Schlossberg (2011) and Anderson et al. (2011) were originally intended for diagnosing individuals, it has served as a model in this study for understanding the cohort of teachers that pioneered the teaching of senior high school in the Philippines. That said, the data obtained can be used as a basis for the formulation of educational policies and interventions to help teachers transition to the senior high school levels. The examination of transitions is also an expansive empirical area for academic researchers to pursue in their studies.