Implementation of Digital Learning Media at a Muhammadiyah Boarding School Junior High School: Supporting and Inhibiting Factors

Abstract

Boarding schools organise learning across a full twenty-four-hour cycle, which gives the implementation of digital learning media a dynamic distinct from that of regular schools, yet empirical study of such settings remains scarce in Indonesia. This study aimed to analyse the forms taken by the implementation of digital learning media, together with its supporting and inhibiting factors, at Muhammadiyah Boarding School Junior High School (SMP MBS) North Bengkulu. A qualitative approach with a descriptive design was used. Informants comprised one principal, thirteen teachers, and eight ninth-grade students. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, classroom observation, and teacher and student response questionnaires used complementarily, with instruments validated by an educational assessment expert and a language expert at a mean of 82.31% in the valid category. Analysis proceeded through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing, reinforced by source and technique triangulation. Implementation was found to be running well, with student responses at 81.71% (very good) and teacher responses at 80.41% (good). Dominant media were laptops and projectors (100%), Canva (88.89%), PowerPoint (66.67%), and YouTube (55.56%), while interactive platforms such as Kahoot! were used by only 22.22% of teachers. Use remains at the substitution level and uneven between teachers, with 55.56% using digital media fortnightly to monthly. The central finding is a gap between the availability of facilities and the regularity of their use, and between high student motivation and low active participation (71.43%). Optimisation therefore requires strengthened governance, teacher digital competence, and participatory activity design rather than additional infrastructure.