Category Archives: Research
Teaching Styles, Students’ Motivation, and Grit as Correlates of Students’ Performance in English
One of the constructs we examined in this study was “motivation to learn English.” Why do learners study the language? Gardner dichotomized motivation to acquire a second language into “instrumental” and “integrative.” To explain it, a person is instrumentally motivated to learn another language if their reason falls into one of two categories: academic (to achieve good grades or secure a certification) or economic (to ensure a better salary). If a person attempts to acquire proficiency in a language for personal or cultural reasons (to communicate effectively and integrate into the society or culture of the language’s speakers), they are integratively motivated.
I presumed (and you are probably also) that our Korean students, who served as respondents in this study, are instrumentally motivated. They study English for academic and economic reasons. I was wrong. The results of our research have shown that our students are more integrally motivated than instrumentally.
Being motivated to learn English instrumentally does not mean that you are not integratively interested in acquiring proficiency in the language, or vice versa. It means only that your motivation is stronger in one area over the other.
Human rights victimization and self-esteem of university students: Mediating effects of hope and moderating effects of human rights awareness
A research paper published in a Scopus-indexed journal
Human Rights Victimization and Self-esteem of University Students: Mediating Effect of Hope
and Moderating Effects of Human Rights Awareness
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya & Chang Seek Lee
Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development, Vol. 9, No. 9, September 2018, pp. 1138–1142
DOI: 10.5958/0976-5506.2018.01151.8
Research Summary
Human dignity lies at the heart of human rights, and violations of those rights can have important psychological consequences. Because self-esteem reflects an individual’s sense of self-worth and personal dignity, experiences of human rights victimization may undermine how people perceive and value themselves. This study examined the relationship between human rights victimization and self-esteem among university students in South Korea, while investigating two psychological and cognitive factors that might help explain or alter that relationship: hope and human rights awareness.
The study involved 233 university students selected through purposive sampling from universities located in Seosan City, Chungcheongnam Province, and Mokpo City, Jeonnam Province. The participants had a mean age of 22.6 years; 149 were female and 84 were male. Established instruments were used to measure human rights victimization, hope, human rights awareness, and self-esteem. The scales demonstrated acceptable to high internal reliability. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Hayes’ PROCESS macro, with bootstrapping employed to examine mediation and moderation effects.
Correlation analysis revealed that human rights victimization was significantly and negatively associated with self-esteem (r = −.452, p < .01), hope (r = −.324, p < .01), and human rights awareness (r = −.132, p < .05). In contrast, hope was strongly and positively related to self-esteem (r = .601, p < .01), suggesting that students with greater hope also tended to possess higher levels of self-esteem.
The mediation analysis provided further insight into this relationship. Human rights victimization had a significant negative effect on hope, while hope had a significant positive effect on self-esteem. Bootstrapping confirmed a significant indirect effect, demonstrating that hope mediated the relationship between human rights victimization and self-esteem. In other words, victimization was associated with diminished hope, which in turn was associated with lower self-esteem. Conversely, maintaining or strengthening hope may help protect an individual’s sense of self-worth in the face of adverse experiences.
The study also found that human rights awareness moderated the relationship between victimization and self-esteem. The interaction between human rights victimization and human rights awareness was statistically significant, indicating that the association between victimization and self-esteem varied according to students’ level of human rights awareness. This finding highlights awareness of one’s rights as an important factor in understanding how experiences of victimization relate to psychological well-being.
Taken together, the findings show that the consequences of human rights victimization cannot be understood solely through the direct relationship between victimization and self-esteem. Psychological resources such as hope and an individual’s awareness of human rights form part of a more complex process through which experiences of victimization are associated with self-perception and well-being. The study therefore points toward educational and institutional interventions that strengthen students’ hope, awareness of their rights, and capacity to respond constructively when those rights are violated.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to the literature on human rights and psychological well-being by moving beyond a simple victimization–self-esteem relationship and examining both a mediating and a moderating mechanism. By identifying hope as a mediator and human rights awareness as a moderator, it offers a more nuanced account of the factors associated with university students’ self-esteem following experiences of human rights victimization. The findings also provide a basis for universities to consider human rights education and hope-enhancing interventions as complementary approaches to supporting students’ psychological well-being.
Keywords: human rights, human rights victimization, human rights awareness, self-esteem, hope, university students, mediation, moderation
Full Text
The full text of this publication is available upon request. Researchers, educators, students, and other interested readers who wish to obtain a copy may contact the author through this website or by email at madligaya@gmail.com.
Between Us Bi-Multilinguals: Bilingual and Multilingual Views on Codeswitching
A research paper published in a Scopus-indexed journal
Between Us Bi-Multilinguals: Bilingual and Multilingual Views on Codeswitching
Estrella F. Fajardo, Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya, and Joung-Hyun Ham
Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development, Vol. 9, No. 8, August 2018
DOI: 10.5958/0976-5506.2018.00860.4
Research Summary
Codeswitching—the practice of alternating between two or more languages within a conversation—is a common feature of communication in bilingual and multilingual societies. In the Philippines, where many people routinely use English, Filipino, and regional languages, codeswitching has become a natural part of everyday interaction. This study examined the phenomenon among bilingual and multilingual English teachers, focusing not only on how they switched languages but also on the communicative purposes their switches served.
The study specifically investigated the syntactic patterns of codeswitching used by the teachers and the social or discourse functions underlying their language choices. Eight English faculty members participated in the study: three bilingual speakers of English and Tagalog and five multilingual speakers who also spoke Kapampangan. Naturally occurring face-to-face communication and interviews were used to gather samples of their linguistic behavior. The recorded switches were classified according to their syntactic patterns and communicative functions and analyzed using frequency counts and percentages.
A total of 90 codeswitched utterances were identified. Intrasentential switching—changing languages within a phrase, clause, or sentence—was by far the most common pattern, accounting for 64.44% of all observed switches. This was followed by intra-word switching (17.77%), intersentential switching (12.22%), and tag-switching (5.55%). Most switches occurred at the word or phrase level rather than through more structurally complex changes between complete sentences. The teachers also tended to use Tagalog-based sentences containing English elements despite all participants being English teachers.
The analysis further showed that codeswitching performed several communicative functions. Among the functions identified, ease of expression was the most frequent, followed by insufficient academic vocabulary. Other functions included repetition for clarification, expressing the speaker’s mood, adding emphasis, and habitual experience. These findings suggest that codeswitching is not merely random language mixing or evidence of linguistic deficiency. Rather, speakers draw on the languages available to them to communicate ideas, emotions, and experiences more naturally and effectively.
Overall, the study highlights codeswitching as a functional and socially meaningful feature of bilingual and multilingual communication. The findings demonstrate how language choice is influenced by context, topic, linguistic resources, and the speaker’s communicative needs, particularly in an academic workplace where several languages coexist.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to the understanding of codeswitching by combining structural analysis with communicative-function analysis in the natural interactions of bilingual and multilingual English teachers. It reinforces the view that codeswitching should be understood not simply as alternation between languages but as a linguistic resource speakers strategically—and sometimes unconsciously—use to facilitate communication and express meaning.
Keywords: codeswitching, bilingualism, multilingualism, syntactic patterns, discourse functions, language choice
Full Text
The full text of this publication is available upon request. Researchers, educators, students, and other interested readers who wish to obtain a copy may contact the author through this website or by email at madligaya@gmail.com.
Human Rights Victimization and Self-esteem of University Students: Mediating Effect of Hope and Moderating Effect of Human Rights Awareness
Abstract
This study focused on human rights victimization among university students and how it affects their self-esteem. It also examined the mediating effects of hope and the moderating effects of human rights awareness in the relationship between human rights victimization and self-esteem. 223 university students, chosen through purposive sampling, participated in the study. Human rights victimization did not significantly affect self-esteem (β = .6052, p>.05) and also had a statistically significant negative effect on the mediating variable – hope (β = -. 2413, p <.01). Hope, on the other hand, had a statistically significant positive effect on self-esteem (β = .5307, p<.001). Therefore, hope mediates the relationship between human rights victimization and self-esteem. The moderator – human rights awareness – had a statistically positive effect on self-esteem (β=.5683, p<.01), but the interaction variable (human right victimization x human rights awareness) had a statistically significant negative effect on self-esteem (β = -. 2479, p <.01) meaning human right awareness moderates the relationship between human rights victimization and self-esteem.
Full Text in PDF form:
WANTED: Perfect Research
Griffith once said that “there is no hope of doing a perfect research.”
There is no established standard that can be used in determining whether a particular research is perfect or otherwise. Thus, this writer’s response to whether he agrees or otherwise to Griffith’s contention that “there is no hope of doing perfect research“(qtd. in Gateworth 1 ) is hypothetical and grounded on the following: how the phrase perfect research is operationally defined; and whether or not the objectives for which the research is designed for are attained or not.
For the first point, the word perfect in the phrase perfect research is obviously used as an adjective. The word aforementioned then must be treated as such. Out of the definition and synonyms for the word perfect provided in the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary, this writer wishes to focus only on the following: “being entirely without fault of defect.”
If perfect research would be defined as an undertaking that is entirely without fault or defect, in short faultless, then this writer would agree to the contention which Griffith made. There would indeed be no hope of making a perfect research in that sense.
Research as a process maybe perfect for it corresponds to set standards. However, there is something in the process itself that makes it not impeccable – that is the identification and selection of variables.
Ariola stated that “variables are the conditions or characteristics that the experimenter manipulates, controls or observes” (121). Variables may either be independent or dependent although there are also secondary variables namely moderator, control and intervening.
In a causal relationship, Ariola explains that the independent variable is the presumed cause of the dependent variable. Conversely, the dependent variable is the consequence of the independent variable (122).
In the research process, the researcher would examine an observed phenomenon (e.g. school effectiveness) which would serve as (or reflect) the dependent variable. Thereafter, the researcher selects which independent variable he would measure, manipulate or select to determine its relationship to the observed phenomenon. It is at this juncture that a deficiency of the research as a process sets in.
When more variables are factored and correlated the higher the accuracy of the results of a research undertaking becomes. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to select all the necessary independent variables to test against an observed phenomenon. This is due to several constraints (e.g. time, resources, personal limitations) that a researcher may encounter. These are factors beyond the control of the researcher that may prevent him from including the most ideal number of independent variables.
This limitation on the selection of independent variables, together with the existence of some intervening variables that may not be properly detected, would make it really difficult to do a perfect research.
For the second (and last) point, if the sole criterion in classifying research as perfect is whether or not the objectives for which the research is designed for are attained then perfect research is doable.
The primary objectives of research are (1.) to increase the sum of knowledge and (2.) to find solutions to existing problems. The first is the purpose of Pure Research and the second Applied Research. “A present study,” as Adanza puts it, “ may serve only as a venue of confirmation, revision or negation of previous findings” (1). But she added, “such results are still new which add knowledge” (1).
One of the synonyms of the word perfect which the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary provides is complete. Thus, when a researcher attained his objectives, came out with the answers to the general and specific problems, correspondingly tested the hypothesis/hypotheses, arrived at a conclusion and proposed recommendations – then his tasks were completed, his research is complete, it is perfect. And if his research undertakings resulted either to a discovery of a fact previously unknown or to the presentation of solutions to certain problems then the purpose for which his research was made is consummated or has attained completion. Then all the more that his research, as far as this writer is concerned, would be considered perfect.
Works Cited:
Gateworth, Victoria. “Re: Academia Test.” Message to Mad Ligaya. 13 May 2011. E-mail.
Merriam-Webster. An Encyclopedia Britannica Company. Web. 17 May 2011.
Ariola, Mariano. Principles and Methods of Research. Manila: Rex Book Store. 2006. Print.
Adanza, Estela. Research Methods: Principles and Applications. Manila: Rex Book Store. Print.
M.A.D. L I G A Y A 