Integrating electronic music devices into lower secondary school music education in Gulu city, Uganda: pedagogical affordances, infrastructure challenges, and emerging hybrid models

Abstract

Background: Electronic music devices are reshaping music pedagogy globally, yet evidence on their deployment in post-conflict urban settings in sub-Saharan Africa remains scarce. Lower secondary schools in Gulu City, Northern Uganda, have begun acquiring digital keyboards and music software, yet systematic evidence on their pedagogical deployment, affordances, and structural barriers to effective use is absent from the literature. Objectives: This study investigated the pedagogical affordances of electronic music devices in lower secondary school music education in Gulu City, identified infrastructure challenges constraining their integration, and examined hybrid instructional models constructed by teachers and community musicians. Methods: A qualitative mixed-methods design was employed. Purposive sampling was used to select five lower secondary schools in Gulu city. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twelve music teachers, four focus group discussions with sixty students across Senior One to Senior Four levels, structured interviews with five school administrators, and key informant interviews with four community musicians. Thematic analysis guided data organisation and interpretation, cross-referenced against the Technology Acceptance Model and constructivist learning theory. Results: Three themes emerged. First, electronic devices expanded students' creative and compositional capacities and enhanced multimodal engagement, though pedagogical value was mediated by teacher competence and inadequate maintenance budgets, and instructional intent. Second, unreliable electricity supply, inadequate maintenance budgets, and limited internet connectivity constituted persistent structural barriers that truncated the devices' instructional potential. Third, teachers and community musicians were collaboratively constructing instructional potential. Third, teachers and community musicians were collaboratively constructing hybrid models that wove digital tools with traditional Acholi musical practices, producing culturally responsive and contextually adaptive pedagogical approaches. Conclusions: Electronic music devices hold genuine promise for transforming lower secondary music education in Gulu city when embedded within sound pedagogical frameworks, supported by adequate infrastructure, and anchored in local cultural knowledge. Targeted investment in school electricity, in- service teacher training, and formalised community musician partnerships are recommended.