Balancing Act: A Case Study on Postgraduate Degree Pursuits by Mature Female Learners

Abstract

This study examined how mature female learners sustained postgraduate study while working full time and raising families, a topic with few qualitative accounts in the Philippine teaching profession. Using a qualitative case study design bounded by the participants’ shared characteristics, and institutional contexts, the researchers conducted three individual semi-structured interviews and one focus group discussion with three married mothers employed as teachers in different institutional contexts. Self-Determination Theory, Feminist Theory, and the Chain of Response Model guided the interpretation of motivation, gendered constraints, and barriers to adult participation. Thematic analysis showed that participants faced time scarcity, work-related demands, financial pressure, and technological and cognitive challenges associated with age. They sustained their studies through disciplined time management, task prioritization, brief and purposeful distraction, support from family, colleagues, and administrators, and a positive attitude. Responsive and personalized academic advising emerged as a critical institutional factor that strengthened motivation, maintained momentum, and supported progress toward degree completion. Participants also valued flexible learning modalities, empathetic faculty, and structured check-ins. The findings illustrate how intrinsic motivation, resilience, and strategic coping interact with structural support to enable persistence. Interpreted through the three frameworks, participants’ needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness were supported or strained by situational, institutional, and dispositional conditions, and caregiving was redistributed among family members rather than removed. Because the case involved only three participants, the findings are offered for analytic transferability, not statistical generalization. The study recommends that higher education institutions, academic advisers, and policymakers provide flexible scheduling, financial assistance, and proactive advisory services that recognize the gendered and situational constraints faced by mature female learners.