Lived Experiences of BASC Students in the New Normal and its Implication for Instructional Effectiveness: A Grounded Theory Study

COVID-19 Pandemic has forced the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to mandate Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines the paradigm shift of teaching-learning to distance learning called Flexible Learning Modality (FLM). Dealing with this, to determine the lived experiences of Bulacan Agricultural State College (BASC) students in the new normal and its implication for instructional effectiveness, this Grounded theory study aimed to describe the students' perception on the use of FLM, to determine the challenges and opportunities that students face in the new normal to determine ways to improve the teaching-learning process through the use of FLM. With the purposive sampling as the technique for acquiring the number of informants, and constructivist design of coding in generating assumptions, themes and core categories, a total of five emerging themes were extracted, namely (1) Work-study balance; (2) engaging, interactive and convenient; (3) less engaging, less effective and less interactive; (4) internet-related issues; and (5) leniency for sanity were the emerging themes extracted from the responses. The researchers developed a theoretical model from the responses of ten student-informants. The generated model describes the challenges and opportunities of students in the use of FLM that are influenced by the teacher factor, connectivity factor, and time factor. These challenges and opportunities led to several implications which will serve as grounds for the instructional effectiveness of FLM in tertiary education.