Out-of-Field Teaching Experiences of Science Teachers in Non-Specialized Subjects: A Phenomenological Study

A teacher must have immense knowledge of the subject they are going to teach. However, teachers in the field experiences teaching on the subject that they do not master. The study aimed to explore science teachers' experiences in teaching non-specialized subjects. The study utilized Moustakas’ Transcendental Phenomenological (TPh) design and employed in-depth interviews (IDI) as the data collection method. Ten participants were purposively selected for this study, consisting of junior and senior high school teachers from Mlang National High School under the Cotabato Division for the School Year 2023–2024. Thematic analysis was applied to generate the data from various sources to gain a fuller perception of the study. Coding was done, and themes were categorized accordingly. Seven (7) essential themes were generated on the teachers' lifeworld in teaching non-specialized subjects. The contexts of the teacher’s lived experiences in teaching non-specialized subjects revealed three (3) significant themes. Additionally, it is shown that six out of ten participants see themselves teaching specialized subjects in the future and four of them learned to love handling non-specialized subjects. As a result, the study recommends realignment of subjects taught, applicant selection, and conducting school visitation among the Department of Education (DepEd) Key Personnel to ensure the exact number of teachers needed in the specific field. Furthermore, the researcher recommends conducting further studies to determine the root cause of the unresolved problem of mismatch among teachers in the education system. Also, future studies could use quantitative methods to provide a more structured and statistically backed analysis and examine how various motivational factors affect teachers who teach subjects outside their specialization, despite facing challenges such as a lack of expertise or resources.