Digital Boundary-Setting, Work-Life Balance, and Technostress Among Public High School Teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69569/jip.2026.472Keywords:
Digital boundary management, Philippines, Public high school teachers, Technostress, Work-life balanceAbstract
Digital technologies now allow public school teachers' work to intrude on personal time long after the instructional day ends, a pattern whose consequences for teacher well-being remain understudied in the Philippine setting. This descriptive-correlational study examined the levels of digital boundary management practices (digital boundary-setting), work-life balance, and technostress among 35 public high school teachers from Grades 7 to 10 at a public secondary school in Isabela, Philippines, and tested whether the three constructs were related. Using total population sampling, all eligible teachers took part in the dependable and verified five-point Likert questionnaire, which was then analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s r with an alpha level of .05. Results showed that digital boundary management practices (M = 3.40, SD = 0.43), work-life balance (M = 3.15, SD = 0.47), and technostress (M = 3.02, SD = 0.42) were all at a moderate level. The key finding was that digital boundary management practices were not significantly related to work-life balance, r(33) = .27, p = .120, or to technostress, r(33) = -.06, p = .756, whereas work-life balance and technostress were significantly and negatively correlated, r(33) = -.40, p = .017. The results show that it may not be enough for teachers to have personal boundary setting, as there may be factors at work contributing to their overall work-life balance and technostress. School-level governance measures, rather than individual effort alone, may be needed to protect teacher well-being in increasingly digitalized educational environments.
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