The new STEM educator: how school teachers adapt to rapid technological and pedagogical shifts: a qualitative approach

Purpose This study explores how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educators of secondary schools in Punjab, Pakistan, perceive, experience, and adapt to rapid technological and pedagogical shifts in their teaching practices. It foregrounds teachers' lived experiences, classroom-level challenges, adaptive strategies, and perceptions of institutional and systemic support in a developing-country educational context. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a qualitative interpretive phenomenological design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 STEM educators from 10 public and private secondary schools in Punjab, selected through maximum-variation purposive sampling. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's six-phase thematic analysis, supported by manual coding and NVivo-assisted organization. The study was theoretically informed by the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework and Transformative Learning Theory. Trustworthiness was enhanced through member checking, reflective memoing, systematic coding, audit-trail documentation, and detailed contextual description. Findings Four major themes emerged: perceptions of technological and pedagogical change, experiences of adapting to new instructional demands, individual and collaborative adaptation strategies, and institutional/systemic support structures. Teachers generally viewed technological and pedagogical change as necessary for modern STEM education, but their adaptation was shaped by infrastructure limitations, time constraints, insufficient training, curriculum rigidity, exam-oriented assessment, and uneven leadership support. The findings show that STEM teacher adaptation is not merely a technical or pedagogical process; rather, it is an emotional, professional, disciplinary, and context-dependent experience shaped by the interaction between teacher agency and structural constraints. Originality/value This study contributes to a teacher-centered and context-specific understanding of STEM educators' adaptation in Pakistan. It extends policy- and adoption-focused research by showing how teacher agency, leadership, infrastructure, disciplinary demands, curriculum expectations, and professional identity collectively shape technology-supported pedagogical change in secondary STEM classrooms.