Shared Space in Distance: A Phenomenological Study on Student Leadership in Virtual Platform

Campus student leadership in a virtual space refers to the pursuit of student leaders in pursuing leadership through organizing, implementing, and facilitating programs and activities virtually. This study utilized a Qualitative Transcendental Phenomenological approach with two sets of focused group discussions and two in-depth interviews. Four themes (categories) emerged that characterized the essence (structure) of the phenomenon of student leadership in virtual space. The themes include “transition and gains” that discuss their experience of the shift from face-to-face leadership to the virtual platform. The second theme is “Mindfulness and Actions” which describes how their mental attitudes have changed when it comes to making decisions now that they lead virtually. The third one is “Adaptability and Coping” which discusses their experiences on how they adapt to the changes and cope with the challenges. The fourth theme is on “virtual rapport and connection” which explains the roles exemplified by the student leaders in establishing the connections among them in the virtual space. The understanding of student leadership in a virtual space provides input for the institution in intensifying its support and improving the delivery of virtual programs and activities through more effective and efficient leadership of students.


INTRODUCTION
Campus student leadership is one of the most important aspects in the development of every student while they are studying. Their involvement in the campus organization provides them a lot of opportunities to develop and enhance their knowledge, skills, and even their values. Educating and engaging the students in leadership and developing them to into becoming leaders of the community in the future has become a priority and objective in many colleges and universities abroad according to Cres, Astin, Zimmerman-Oster, & Burkhdat (2001) as cited in the study of Shertzer, Vernon, Frandsen, Guo, et.al. (2005). Student leadership is important in future careers as students will have to experience the chaotic and unpredictable work environments of today's global marketplace (Kunz and Garner, 2007 as cited by Marketti, Arendth & Shelley, 2011). Further, for them to succeed, they need the ability to find and synthesize diverse sources of information, to manage self, and to empower others, all hallmarks of effective (Komives et al., 1998as mentioned by Marketti, Arendth & Shelley, 2011. The schools are expected by the community or by the public to produce national and global leaders in different fields as economics, politics, education, culture, etc (Rost, 1993 as cited by Shertzer, Vernon, Frandsen, Guo, et.al., 2005). Moreso, in the same article, it is mentioned that the universities and colleges as part of their mission statements are trying to answer a call of delivering more leaders to society and this has been accentuated by new and emerging thoughts and trends about leadership and developing leaders. Astin and Astin (2000) as cited in the study of Marketti, Arendth & Shelley, 2011) contends that leadership development focused on instilling empowering beliefs into college students activities that allow them to believe that they can make a difference and by encouraging them to become involved as leaders in their home, work, and school communities.
Similarly, in the study of Wu (2012) on comparing the effects of university learning experiences to leadership, it was found out that Active learning and co-curricular learning across both institutional types showed a positive effect on student leadership. Active learning played a particularly important role in enhancing student leadership. Passive learning, by contrast, showed a negative or nil effect on student leadership. This implies that engaging students in several activities or programs may improve or develop their leadership skills.
In context, the change that is brought by the pandemic in the global scene has affected or influenced all aspects of life which includes education which includes primarily teaching and learning process and learners meaningful experiences. Campus leadership is just one of the many areas on students' experiential learning that is affected by the global crisis. Due to pandemics, the paradigm of campus organizations, student engagement and interactions, and student leadership also need to be reconsidered, retooled, reimagined without necessarily changing its essence and value in the educative process of the learners. The role of student leaders and student organizations would remain essential to the changing conditions that either deny or impair the educational opportunities for the people as explained by Greene (2006). Thus, the schools have also turned the virtual space for student leaders to pursue their leadership where they can still organize, plan, implement, facilitate their programs and relevant activities so that they could continue to develop critical consciousness, political power, and collective action that can transform education and society in their ways for the better. Similar to the study conducted by Opulencia, Luis, Rima & Mohammed (2018) on organizing people from geographically dispersed areas to a considerably bigger degree. The technology innovation made it very evident, and its response to the call of times was indicative. The study examined Virtual Organizations (n=10) in the Middle East so to determine the work procedures of the various organizations. It was found out that virtual organizations in the Middle East had a competitive advantage on innovations and the ability to design, produce, and support products. Further, it gave limitless potential outcomes as far as business opportunities. It was then recommended to reengineer the talents to work towards proficiency and viability in the delivery systems of the virtual organizations. In other words, the shift of platform on organizing individuals for a particular purpose does not necessarily hinder productivity or success as reflected in the mentioned study. It is also logical to look into the nature of attitudes and characteristics of students leaders when it comes to innovating and making things happen through their boldness and daring ability just like what had transpired in the study of Soriano (2007) describing student leaders with high sense of reasoning, emotional stability, dominance, social Boldness and openness to change. In the study of Cuello in assessing describing the experience of foreign students studying in the Philippine university using the online platform. As a result, foreign students were at the crossroads of embracing traditional education and virtual or online education for graduate courses. They perceived that traditional education gave the benefit of more personal communication between peers and professors, while online education delivered convenience and flexibility. While this study is more academics, but the online experience is somehow similar to the topic being investigated in this research. As mentioned, online interaction is quite lacking with personal communication but the flexibility and convenience are also evident which somehow can also be associated with organizing and facilitating student activities online.
Virtual platform or space in this study is the context as this research would like to investigate the leadership of students in this new space where they function their roles as leaders from the planning to implementation up to the evaluation. Looking at it, it's a whole new experience for many of them. Thus the study would like to explore what's going on in the process, how do they experience the transition, how do they experience the change.
This study conforms to the two paradigms of leadership which are also taken from emerging literature to inform the current study. These two paradigms are labeled as the industrial paradigm and the other one is the emerging alternative views which are referred to as the postindustrial paradigm (Rogers, 1996;Rost 1993). The industrial paradigm contains assumptions that dominated leadership perceptions throughout most of the 20th century which says that leadership is the property of an individual; it pertains primarily to formal groups/organizations, the terms leadership and management can be used interchangeably. On the other hand, the postindustrial paradigm has emerged from more recent literature and thoughts on leadership and criticism of the traditional paradigm. Assumptions of the postindustrial paradigm include or states that leadership is based on relationships and not individuals and leadership is meant to create change, can be done by anyone and just by people with influences. Following through the postindustrial paradigm where this research study can be anchored, leadership is meant to change considering the context to see the relevance.

Research Design
This study utilized a qualitative research paradigm using a transcendental phenomenological approach. This is the approach used because the study aims to understand and describe student leadership in a virtual space as the phenomenon of interest being experienced by the student leaders. The data was gathered using online-focused group discussion and in-depth interviews with the student leaders of both Senior High School and college departments of Notre Dame of Marbel University.

Setting
The study was conducted at the Notre Dame of Marbel University in Koronadal City, South Cotabato, Philippines. NDMU is a Catholic educational institution located in Koronadal City, South Cotabato, Philippines. It is run by the Marist Brothers or FMS (Fratres Maristae a Scholis), a Catholic religious order from France. It is the first Marist University in the Philippines and the only university in Koronadal City. This university offers a complete Basic Education Department from Kindergarten to Senior High School, College, and Graduate School.

Participants
The participants of the study are the students' leaders from the Senior High School and College Department of Notre Dame of Marbel University. They are selected according to the set selection criteria. They must be the current officers of the student council during the conduct of the study. As officers, they should be active and have direct experience in organizing, implementing, facilitating school-related activities online. They also need to have experience being officers during the face-toface delivery of education. The participants from the Senior High School department are SSG officers for the school year 2020-2021. The participants of the college departments are the four college governors of the four collegiate councils and the president of the supreme student government. There were two student leaders from other clubs and organizations were also included as participants.

Instrumentation
This research utilized an interview guide as the research instrument for data gathering. The research guide contains open-ended and exploratory questions to allow the research participants to share their narratives and experiences on leading in the virtual space. The possible probing questions were also indicated in the tool just to guide the researcher on the possibility to extract more information from the sharing of the participants. The interview guide was checked by other experts to ensure the appropriateness of questions to be asked.

Data Gathering Process
There are two methods used for data gathering. The first one is the focused group discussion with two sets of participants. The first set of student leaders were the 4 student leaders from the SHS department. The second set was 5 student leaders from the college department. Two other student leaders were interviewed through the in-depth interview just to substantiate more the data gathered from the two FGD's.

Data Analysis
Thematic analysis following the framework of Collaizi was utilized in analyzing the data. It involved the process of transcribing, coding to identify the significant statements, formulating meaning from the text segment, clustering/ organizing the meanings/concepts into clusters of themes, exhaustively describing the investigated phenomenon, and validating the exhaustive description by participants.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As a result of the analysis from the data, the essence (structure) of the phenomenon of student leadership in a virtual space can be understood as captured by the following themes that emerged from the narratives and experiences of student leaders of Notre Dame of Marbel University.

The Experience of Transition and Gains
Transition experience emerged as the primary theme/category based on the sharing and narratives of the participants in this study. The strategies, approaches, and methods that student leaders do during the face-to-face scheme have been shifted into a new paradigm or pattern of actions during the pandemic. In effect, it brought some changes in the manner of the leadership of students although, at some point, some ways are just the same. According to one participant, the idea of conducting and implementing activities is in no way different from the face-to-face when it comes to its intention and purpose. According to them, the purpose of leading is to provide a platform for the students to be engaged and to showcase their skills and potentials and the same goes in the virtual platform.
The transition may refer to the shift of paradigm/or pattern of thinking and methods done in every stage of conducting programs. Planning, organizing, implementing, and evaluating the programs and activities are still the same processes that every student leader is familiar and engaged with be it face to face or virtual. But, for the participants, they simply transitioned into a different platform and methodology. As shared by the participants, there were several significant leadership decisions that they have to consider in the process. For them, to make decisions is not new to them as it has always been part of leadership. But the shift is on the process and/or methods or platform for decision making. For example, in their brainstorming or discussion phase, they needed to shift their methods via a virtual platform such as zoom, Google meet, and Facebook messenger. As experienced, there are advantages, there are also disadvantages. Many of the officers are not familiar with the platforms so they have to learn. What they learned becomes their gains. For example, is the use of an online broadcasting system in delivering the programs. The officers need to learn it as they transition into live-streaming most of the time.
We learned to use online broadcasting system as our mainstream tool. For the technical aspect, We use OBS is for arranging our materials before it will be streamed live… (Participant 1A) So basically using Facebook as our main social media platform for publishing or broadcasting our activities. We use also zoom and google meet… (Participant 3A) Some are familiar, but some admittedly are not comfortable discussing or negotiating facing their laptops and screens during online discussions or meetings. Thus, they needed to adjust. Adjustment of the tool/equipment to facilitate communication is part of the transition. Brainstorming, tasking, and coordinating are done virtually. For some of them, it was tough at the beginning because they are not used to it. As shared, they felt sometimes that their planning process has not been effective because of several issues and concerns such as power interruptions, internet connectivity, and even the situation of the fellow officers and members at home that affect their participation in the discussion.
We  1A). The context at home is also one of the concepts that surfaced from the sharing of the participants. Contexts pertain to the situation or environment where the student leaders are. As shared by them, it is more convenient and comfortable sharing and discussing ideas during planning when in school. The school is an environment where learners are conditioned to learn through open interaction. The transition of the context where they are at during the planning or meeting at some point affected their ability to think, react, and communicate with and to others. For example, some of them are shy to open up their ideas because their family members can hear them and they are not used to it. Context also affects the flow and the spontaneity of the discussion for instance, the connectivity at home is slow, so it may affect the interaction among them. The noise at home is also part of the context at home and to a certain point, it also affects the dynamics of the discussion in the meeting.
In terms of implementing and facilitating their programs and activities, the transition is also evident in the way they manage and handle the conduct of the activities. Because most of the activities are being live-streamed, they needed to exert more effort on ensuring students' involvement and participation which for them is also challenging. As shared, many students are not really interested and are not motivated to get involved in online activities. For them, what's even more challenging is the fact that they could not control their fellow students' attitudes. Thus, they needed to exert more efforts on creating more innovative strategies.
As the student leaders experience transition and several changes, they also acknowledge the fact that transition means new learnings. The changes have brought them several advantages too such as becoming more innovative and creative in doing things.
I have personally explored the process of video making as most of the time, we also need to come up with video for creatively share our contents. To me that's new learning… (Participant 2A).
Their too much engagement with technology and media allowed them to discover new approaches in facilitating that is more appropriate to virtual, for example, they have come to realize that inviting people for a virtual event can be a lot easier online through messaging and email as compared to the more formalistic approach in the face to face mode. They explored other media on how tasks can be accomplished efficiently while remotely like the discussion and planning through group chat, sharing and viewing of documents using drives, creation of group chat for the judges in some competitions, video making, teasers, and streaming. They developed technical skills and they seemingly enjoyed it as a new experience. They have tried their best to learn these additional skills.
We Their exposure to social media through the streaming of their programs and events also allowed them to develop their communication skill both oral and written as they needed to send and post updates from time to time, they needed to make announcements, they hosts events too as other students are not around. They learned multi-tasking and having fun while accomplishing the tasks. What

. (Participant 10) Mindfulness and Actions
Concerning the transition experience of the student leaders, there are aspects of their thinking process which they considered to have somehow changed. The change may be influenced as well by the context. This can be their own or their fellow students' contexts. All aware of the restrictions and limitations due to pandemics, they seem to have developed that mindfulness as a mental attitude (the way they think) as manifested in the way they make decisions. As drawn from their narratives, they became more intentional and careful whenever they plan for the programs and activities. By being mindful means that they become more attentive to significant details" As shared by them, they do consider what aspects of their actions are still relevant or impactful, necessary and applicable, or no longer considering the current situations, the contexts of the students at home, and also their context as facilitators including their resources, capacity, skills, and knowledge. As shared by the participants, they have learned to be more reflective on their actions this time by reflecting on the foreseen impact to the students once the activities shall be pushed through. Or what particular aspect of the students will the program or activity be of relevance.
Sa They become more conscious of whether activities that are conducted during the face to face may still have an impact on students when they are conducted online. They realized that they started to be more mindful of this aspect every time they brainstorm. As they tried to compare, during the face-to-face, some activities are just being carried over year by year as many activities have just become part of school's traditions without much reflecting on the impact or relevance at the current time. Impact or relevance has always been implied and understood every time in the discussion. But the shift to virtual space has allowed them to discuss and reflect more on the essential matters. For them, it shows their maturity as leaders to see things and these are also reflected in their actions and decisions. They are saying that they become more extra mindful on the aspect of the impact of the program to the students considering the new normal that changes the context of their fellow students who are participating remotely.
….parang mag over-lap na yung role nila as a student from being their family member specially in the situation that we have right now.
We never know what the students are going through especially in this times so we have to make sure po whatever program we conduct, it would be beneficial and worth their time that they're spending with their phones po or screens (participant 1A).
In the planning for the programs and activities, what is being considered too is the necessity. Are the programs still necessary? Perhaps, it is necessary during the face-to-face but not anymore in the virtual platform. It may no longer be necessary because probably, there are already alternative strategies that are more efficient for a virtual platform. Some useful alternatives are considered. Some programs and approaches may no longer be appropriate because they are not applicable anymore. Since the activities are done virtually, they also anticipate possible undesirable circumstances that may happen. Thus, they also need to reconsider alternative plans or decisions. They tend to anticipate problems or issues as online conduct of activities can be challenging. While they anticipate issues, they also anticipate solutions. For them, it is one significant consideration in the planning as they do not want to put their organizations into an embarrassing situation once the event is already being delivered which is explained further on the succeeding themes. For them, this is being mindful also. Being able to look intensely into particular details significantly affect the delivery of the programs.
When it comes to planning po the first thing that you have to think is kunwari its actually starts in the meeting po usually during ahh using the google meet it is also hard to plan po because you have to consider that time everyone is available.. (Participant 2A).

Adaptability and Coping
The third theme that emerged in characterizing student leadership in the virtual space is student leaders' adaptability to the changes and they are coping. Adaptation refers to the ability of the student leaders to adapt to the new methods and paradigm as they have already experienced the transition from face-to-face to virtual leadership. They needed to adapt to the utilization of available tools online in the conduct of meetings, activities, and programs such as zoom, messenger, google meet, adapting some technology in the implementation of programs such as live streaming of events via Facebook live, normalizing the use of messenger in communicating to school authorities as it's easier and accessible; getting used to social media in publishing updates, communicating updates through social media (Facebook, Twitter), getting used to live-streaming that gives TV vibes in presenting/delivering events. All these mean a lot of learning processes for many of the officers are also not oriented to some of these methods. As a way of coping, they needed to learn and adapt the technology, exploring new tools and software. For them, it opens new learning opportunities and since they have been adjusting to the new approach, they have been open to feedback and some criticisms regarding the programs and activities. It also allows them to improve their communication skills as of the time, they needed to communicate virtually to fellow officers and members.
Among the common issues encountered by the student leaders in the implementation of their programs and activities are connectivity and power interruption. These are occurrences that they cannot control and many times affected the conduct of activities. There are times that they needed to delay the activity, make some modifications to the plans just like recording the program instead of doing it live, and there are times that they really have to compromise as they couldn't do anything with the situation. As this already becomes common to their experience, to anticipate and foresee possible issues like connectivity, power interruption, or issue on technology has already been part of their discussion in the planning phase.

What if ganito po anng mangyari sa mga activities what if mawalan ng signal yung mga ganon po we have plan B's po para di po kami mag karoon ng problem and maging easy flow po yung activity…(Participant 3A).
The virtual conduct of their events also made them realize that there are things beyond their level of control no matter how well they have prepared. For them, it is already part of the realities in the new normal. To compromise and accept the situation is part of the process whenever confronted with issues they can't do anything with. This is how they cope with it rather than getting frustrated or disappointed. Flexibility in handling students' attitudes/ involvement/participation online is also one of the common challenges experienced by the student leaders. These issues involve students' passivity which is common even during the face-to-face, students' apathetic behavior, complaints, abused reasons for not taking part in the program, and some bad behaviors online. As shared by the participants, some students could not participate due to the issue of connectivity and power interruptions, but many students also do not get involved just because they do not want it. They do not find the online activities interesting or helpful for them.
Some students do overly get involved by posting unfiltered negative comments and feedback regarding the conduct of the program. As a way of coping student leaders tend to stretch out their patience a little more, become even more considerate to the needs and contexts of the students remotely, and tend to rethink more strategies to capture their attention.
We have to strengthen our understanding and patience and ahh sa mga students kasi nga po di po namin sila controlado.. (Participant 2A).

Virtual rapport and connections
Being sensitive to feedback/reactions of the students has also been developed among the student leaders. They shared that one of the ways how to connect with the students is to consider their feedback every time there are programs and activities online. They monitor feedback from the students through the language and some emoticons like the one way to see whether students are satisfied and happy about the activities/programs especially if it is being live-streamed. Their intention to connect means to deliver a clear and careful message using the most appropriate language, thus, student leaders also developed that kind of attitude every time they speak up online. They tend to be more careful (Sensitive) on what they communicate (language use) whenever they publish/post online as they avoid being criticized harshly.
Building rapport online means keeping updated with the officers; ensuring members' through constant follow up; proper monitoring of the tasks assigned to the officer; checking the output of the officers whom tasks are assigned to do, delegating the tasks properly according to the skills of the officers; Call for follow up meeting to check what has been accomplished from the previous meeting; consultation with the adviser; took advantage of an online platform to constantly meet and communicate with the officers by utilizing of social media. In establishing the rapport, preferences of student leaders to communicate online-some are comfortable talking online, others are more comfortable through chat. Another theme that emerged in the effort of the student leaders to establish connection despite the remoteness is engaging students in the conversation/discussion. They acknowledged the difficulty in online interaction in which there are real moments of miscommunication and misunderstanding. To engage the students and some fellow officers in the planning and discussion means so much effort on the part of the student leaders. They talk to some students privately, they assign them to tasks to be challenged a and for them to feel their significance, they utilize group messenger to build good interaction and involve them in the brainstorming process.
We struggle the most po is the students participation because it is something that we cannot a fully… ( To sustain the connection with the students, student leaders needed to instill some values necessary to sustain how they relate with the students. Flexibility is already discussed in the previous segment. The student leaders need to have control, be patient, be more considerate, and must tolerate. These values are almost related in particular contexts. As shared by the student leaders, they need to deal with all the concerns of the students online, they need to be more considerate with the situations of their fellow students. At some point, they can tolerate some reactions of students online whenever programs are being delivered through live streaming and be more flexible with students' attitudes as many times they experience being bashed, laid down with complaints and the most common is students' show of lack of interest on their programs. These values are considered to be inherent among leaders even in the face-to-face modality, but the paradigm shift has allowed them to manifest these values even more in trying to handle the issue with students involvement and participation.
Aside from anticipating issues and problems with alternatives, student leaders also became more conscious of the impact of the programs and activities that they do. Are the programs developmental? Will it help their members improve their skills? How many can benefit? How can it encourage everyone's involvement? These are some questions they consider to ensure the impact of the program.
Assertiveness also characterized their experience making connections with the students. It can be associated with the efforts they exert on ensuring that the students can see the value of what they are doing online. As shared, the student has been trying their best in exerting much effort so that students' can feel their presence; they exert much effort on asserting their presence so students can feel their existence; effort made by encouraging students' participation. They needed to collaborate with the teachers to give extra points for students' participation. Also, they keep trying to explore more strategies to encourage students' participation that leads them to do trial and error as part of the process of planning.
Kung pano po namin siya ma-deliver sa mga students and also tulad po ng sinabi nilang participation yun po talaga yung isa sa mahirap gawin kung paano ma encourage yung student kasi for example ako po I'd work po sa promotions and communication committee and one thing po na ginawa namin is mag labas po ng mga posters ng mga trailers ng mga count downs para lang po ma hype... (Participant 2B).

CONCLUSION
In the context of this study, the school may reconsider revisiting its programs and initiatives for the students. Looking into the themes grounded from the experiences and narratives shared by the participants, the support of the administrators and faculty toward students' activities and programs online should be necessary because it is on the organizing, planning, implementing, and facilitating of programs and any other initiatives that student leaders manifest or exercise their leadership. It should be acknowledged that student leadership in the virtual space is part of the new normal, a new paradigm for learning among the students, thus, needs to be supported and intensified by allowing student leaders to enhance their leadership in this new space, providing them capacity building program to have formal training on some technical skills as deemed necessary, clarifying and aligning institutional policies and guidelines on students' conduct of activities online and the roles of student leaders. Understanding leadership on virtual space provides necessary input on the school administrators or even at the level of the student organizations to plan and implement strategies to enhance more the delivery of the programs to be conducted online.