Digital Mediation and Worship Discipline in Islamic Junior High Schools: A Phenomenological Study of Students’ Lived Experiences
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35445/alishlah.v18i3.9282Keywords:
Digital Mediation, Religious Routine, Meaning and Worship Discipline,Abstract
Digital technologies increasingly mediate students’ religious routines, yet limited research has examined how adolescents experience digital monitoring in relation to worship discipline, sincerity, and personal agency. This study explores students’ lived experiences of digitally mediated religious routines through the E-Connector system in an Islamic junior high school. An interpretive phenomenological design was employed with eight students who had used the E-Connector for at least one academic semester. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations, and document analysis. The data were analyzed thematically to identify shared patterns of lived experience related to digital mediation and religious self-regulation. Five interconnected themes emerged: E-Connector as a reminder and digital guide, accountability and worship discipline, sincerity under digital monitoring, teacher support and ethical mediation, and negotiation between autonomy and religious obligation. Students experienced the system as supporting awareness and consistency in worship while also negotiating tensions between external monitoring, personal responsibility, and sincere religious intention. Supportive teacher guidance shaped whether digital monitoring was experienced as pedagogical assistance rather than institutional control. The findings suggest that digital mediation in religious education can be understood as a relational and pedagogical process rather than merely a monitoring mechanism. When embedded within supportive and non-punitive teacher–student relationships, digital mediation may provide opportunities for reflective religious self-regulation while preserving students’ agency and awareness of sincerity in worship.
References
Campbell, H. A., & Evolvi, G. (2020). Contextualizing current digital religion research on emerging technologies. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2(1), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.149
Campbell, H. A., & Tsuria, R. (Eds.). (2022). Digital religion: Understanding religious practice in digital media (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Dede, C. (2014). The role of digital technologies in deeper learning. Jobs for the Future.
Finlay, L. (2011). Phenomenology for therapists: Researching the lived world. Wiley-Blackwell.
Howard, S. K., Tondeur, J., Siddiq, F., & Scherer, R. (2021). Ready, set, go! Profiling teachers’ readiness for online teaching in secondary education. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 30(1), 141–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2020.1839543
Ifenthaler, D., & Yau, J. Y.-K. (2020). Utilising learning analytics to support study success in higher education: A systematic review. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68(4), 1961–1990. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09788-z
King, P. E., Mangan, S., & Riveros, R. (2023). Religion, spirituality, and youth thriving: Investigating the roles of the developing mind and meaning-making. In E. B. Davis, E. L. Worthington Jr., & S. A. Schnitker (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology, religion, and spirituality (pp. 263–277). Springer.
Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847
Panadero, E. (2017). A review of self-regulated learning: Six models and four directions for research. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 422. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00422
Raihani. (2018). Education for multicultural citizens in Indonesia: Policies and practices. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 48(6), 992–1009.
Sahin, A. (2018). Critical issues in Islamic education studies: Rethinking Islamic and Western liberal secular values of education. Religions, 9(11), Article 335. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110335
Sailer, M., & Homner, L. (2020). The gamification of learning: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 32(1), 77–112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09498-w
Selwyn, N. (2021). Education and technology: Key issues and debates (3rd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.
Selwyn, N., Nemorin, S., Bulfin, S., & Johnson, N. F. (2017). Left to their own devices: The everyday realities of one-to-one classrooms. Oxford Review of Education, 43(3), 289–310.
Ubani, M. (2021). Religious literacy as a 21st-century skill for all teachers. In A. Toom, J. Husu, & R. Patrikainen (Eds.), Good teachers for tomorrow’s schools: Purpose, values, and talents in education (pp. 166–191). Brill Sense.
Van Manen, M. (2023). Phenomenology of practice: Meaning-giving methods in phenomenological research and writing (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Citation Check
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Ana lusiana, Wiwik Wijayanti, Muh Saidil Ikhwan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
