Exploring Elementary School Teachers’ Experiences of the Self-Management Experience on Cyberspace: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

Background: The spread of coronavirus in Iran, caused virtual education in cyberspace to replace face-to-face education. On the other hand, one of the main tasks of teachers in the process of virtual education is to share management information and self management. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the lived experiences of Shiraz (public) elementary school teachers of self-management in cyberspace. Methods: In this qualitative study, Husserl’s phenomenological method was used. Participants in the study were 17 teachers with teaching experience in the central and suburbs of Shiraz. They were selected by purposive sampling and criterion sampling approaches The data was collected by a semi-structured interview. To measure the initial validity of the data, the credibility criteria (the triangulation method was used and tried to collect sufficient data from different resources to create believability) and reliability (this criterion is referred to the stability of results at different times and conditions and is equivalent to reliability in quantitative research) was used. After encoding the data, the thematic analysis method was used to form a network of self-management themes in cyberspace. Results: Results classified as follows: The organizing themes were: 1) self-management skills related to students’ challenges (student participation in e-learning, encourage unmotivated students in cyberspace, etc.) 2) Self-management skills about the challenges of colleagues (formation of virtual groups between colleagues for co-thinking between teachers, content production by consulting colleagues with each other, etc.) 3) Self-management skills about management challenges (online planning to set the timing of online teaching, managing student attendance in the online classroom for students who did not attend online class, etc.) 4) Self-management skills were divided about educational challenges (producing attractive content to prevent students ‘cyberspace boredom, online student evaluation, etc.) Conclusion: An exploratory model was formed in a global theme called teacher self-management in cyberspace.

Keywords

• keywords: self-management
• cyberspace challenges
• husserl’s phenomenology
• elementary school teachers
• management
• classroom management