The Half-Truth Before Ecclesiastes
A Reflective Essay
I usually dedicate the first 60 minutes of my waking hours to a strict daily routine: make my bed, perform the usual bathroom rituals, drink lukewarm water with Himalayan salt, meditate and pray, exercise lightly for 10 to 15 minutes with Gospel songs playing in the background, and then, for the final activity, read for at least 10 minutes—or whatever remains of that first hour.
Phones and other gadgets are off-limits.
Yesterday morning, I reached for my 30-year-old Bible and read Ecclesiastes. It is a Devotional Study Bible, New International Version, that a pastor friend gave us as a wedding gift. I even brought it with me when I came to South Korea in 2013.
I opened the Bible to page 569. Before the first chapter of Ecclesiastes was a two-page introduction. I intended to skip it and go directly to the first verse, but its title ambushed my attention:
“When Life Seems Senseless.”
So I read on.
One paragraph told Howard Hughes’s story. It contrasted the poor who imagine that more money would make them happy with Hughes, one of the richest men in the world, who eventually withdrew from society and spent his later years secluded in darkened hotel rooms. It described his long hair and beard, overgrown fingernails, and emaciated body.
Honestly, in that instant, I could not recall anything about Howard Hughes. For a moment, I even wondered whether he was a fictitious character used simply to illustrate the lesson.
My curiosity got the better of my gadget-free morning rule. I had to know who this man was.
So I reluctantly reached for my phone and asked Gemini:
“Is Howard Hughes a fictitious character?”
Gemini promptly doused my ignorance with a bucketful of information. For a moment, I felt as though the AI application were telling me:
How can you know nothing about this great man, you stupid moron?
Then something clicked.
The Aviator.
Leonardo DiCaprio. Howard Hughes.
Suddenly, I remembered. I had actually watched the movie, and some of my students had even used it for their movie reviews in my literature class back in the Philippines.
The Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio was based on Hughes’ life. Suddenly, the miserable recluse described in my Bible’s introduction acquired another identity: aviator, filmmaker, businessman, engineer, risk-taker, record-setter—a complicated and extraordinarily accomplished human being. The man I had wondered about only moments earlier might be a fictitious character, but he suddenly emerged as an almost larger-than-life figure. Hughes had set aviation records and contributed to aircraft development long before he became best known for the eccentricity and isolation of his final years.
And then another question occurred to me:
What happened between those two Howard Hugheses?
The introduction had told me about his enormous wealth at the beginning and his miserable condition near the end. But it had said almost nothing about the road between them.
That omission bothered me.
Perhaps the writer simply wanted Hughes to illustrate one of the central themes associated with Ecclesiastes: worldly wealth, achievement, and pleasure cannot guarantee meaning or happiness. Hughes certainly makes a powerful example. He possessed extraordinary wealth and accomplishment, yet neither protected him from suffering.
But a human life becomes dangerously easy to moralize when we remove its middle.
In 1946, while test-flying the experimental XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft, Hughes crashed into a residential area in Beverly Hills. He was pulled from the wreckage in critical condition. The accident was only one part of a complicated life, but it was no trivial footnote.
His later years were marked by worsening isolation, poor nutrition, heavy drug use, and deteriorating physical and psychological health.
Does the crash explain everything that happened to Howard Hughes afterward?
Probably not.
And this is precisely where I must be careful not to commit the same mistake I am criticizing. It would be unfair to replace one simplified Howard Hughes with another—to turn “the miserable billionaire” into “the great man destroyed entirely by one accident.”
Human beings are rarely that simple.
Hughes had his flaws. His psychological difficulties were complex. His wealth, power, personality, physical suffering, medications, relationships, choices, and circumstances all belonged to the same human story.
But that is exactly the point.
The whole story matters.
The introduction reduced that complicated story to an effective contrast: a man had tremendous wealth and nevertheless ended his life miserably.
As a sermon illustration, it works.
As an account of a human being, it leaves me uneasy.
There is a difference between saying something untrue and telling only the part of the truth that serves our argument. The passage about Hughes may not have lied about him. But by omitting important context, it made his decline appear almost like the inevitable moral consequence of wealth itself.
And perhaps that teaches a lesson quite different from the one the writer intended.
When we use real people’s lives to illustrate moral or spiritual truths, we owe those people fairness—even when they are long dead.
Their suffering should not become merely a convenient prop for our argument.
This realization also changed the way I looked at the pages in front of me.
I had initially thought: How ironic that a Bible should contain something I find so incomplete.
But then I realized that I needed to make another distinction.
The introduction was not Ecclesiastes.
It was not Scripture.
It was commentary written by a human being to help readers approach Scripture. Like every piece of human commentary—including this essay—it carries the writer’s choices, limitations, interpretations, and assumptions.
Perhaps that is another reason we should read carefully.
Not cynically.
Not suspiciously.
But carefully.
Faith does not require us to surrender critical thought. If anything, a commitment to truth should make us more reluctant to accept a convenient story simply because it supports a conclusion we already agree with.
And ironically, learning more about Hughes did not weaken the message of Ecclesiastes for me.
It deepened it.
Howard Hughes possessed things most people spend their lives pursuing: money, fame, influence, achievement, adventure. He flew aircraft others would not dare fly. He made movies. He built businesses. He broke records. Yet none of those things could make him invulnerable.
But perhaps the lesson is not simply:
Look at Howard Hughes. He was rich, and still he was miserable.
Perhaps the more compassionate lesson is:
Look at Howard Hughes. He was powerful, accomplished, wealthy—and still painfully human.
Money could not protect his body from injury.
Achievement could not guarantee peace.
Power could not make him immune to illness, dependency, isolation, or mortality.
And neither can ours.
That, to me, is closer to the haunting wisdom of Ecclesiastes.
Not that achievement is worthless.
Not that wealth inevitably corrupts.
Not that ambition makes life meaningless.
But that none of them can bear the weight of becoming the meaning of life itself.
Yesterday morning, I opened my old Bible intending simply to read Ecclesiastes.
Instead, before reaching its first verse, I found myself reading about Howard Hughes, reluctantly reaching for my phone despite my gadget-free rule, consulting artificial intelligence, remembering The Aviator, investigating a plane crash, questioning a Bible commentary, and eventually questioning my own first conclusions.
Quite a detour before Chapter 1.
But perhaps not a meaningless one.
Because before Ecclesiastes could remind me that life is complicated, Howard Hughes already had.
Comparing the Effect of Face-to-Face and Online English Lounges on Students’ Speaking Ability and Attitude Toward Foreign Professors
A research paper presented as a conference paper and subsequently published in an academic journal
Comparing the Effects of Face-to-Face and Online English Lounges on Students’
Speaking Ability and Attitude Toward Foreign Teachers
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya, Hyun Jung Lee, Joung-Hyun Ham, Randy S. Tolentino,
Thomas Edward Farrell II, and Christopher Glenn Gunther
2021 Second International Conference on Innovative Technology and Convergences, Dec 8–9, 2021, Virtual
DOI 10.1109/CITC54365.2021.00011
Research Summary
English conversation lounges provide university students with opportunities to use English beyond the formal classroom and engage in meaningful interaction with foreign language teachers. At the respondent university in South Korea, this type of out-of-class learning was institutionalized through the English Café Program (ECP), an optional, non-credit program established in 2014 to supplement classroom instruction and strengthen students’ English-speaking ability. The program was also intended to foster more positive attitudes toward foreign English teachers through direct interaction. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced university activities online in 2020, the ECP shifted from its traditional face-to-face format to virtual sessions, creating an opportunity to compare the perceived effectiveness of the two modes.
The study employed a descriptive-comparative survey design covering the face-to-face implementation of the English Café Program in 2019 and its online implementation in 2020. It investigated the extent to which each mode affected students’ speaking ability and attitudes toward foreign teachers and examined whether teachers’ educational qualifications and length of service were associated with these outcomes. The researchers also tested whether students and teachers differed significantly in their perceptions of the effects of the two delivery modes.
The study involved 800 student respondents and 19 foreign teachers in each phase. The same group of teachers participated in both the 2019 and 2020 phases, while 800 students were randomly selected for each phase from the relevant student population described in the paper. Two versions of the questionnaire—one for students and another for teachers—were used to assess the effects of the program on students’ speaking ability and attitudes toward foreign teachers. The surveys were administered online through SurveyMonkey. Data were analyzed using frequency analysis, mean comparisons, t-tests, Pearson correlation analysis, and SPSS version 23.
The findings showed that both students and teachers perceived the face-to-face English Café Program as improving students’ speaking ability and attitudes toward foreign teachers to a great extent. Student respondents reported a weighted mean of approximately 3.95 for speaking ability and 3.94 for attitude toward foreign teachers, while the teacher respondents likewise evaluated the program positively. The online implementation produced similarly favorable assessments: both groups perceived the online English Café as improving speaking ability and promoting positive attitudes toward foreign teachers to a great extent.
Importantly, the statistical comparison revealed no significant differences between the respondents’ perceptions of the effects of the face-to-face and online implementations on students’ speaking ability and attitudes toward foreign teachers. The p-values were greater than .05, indicating that the differences observed between the modes were not statistically significant. The results therefore suggested that, from the respondents’ perspectives, moving the English Café Program online did not substantially diminish its effectiveness.
The correlation analysis produced another important finding. In both delivery modes, students’ speaking ability was strongly and positively correlated with their attitudes toward foreign teachers: r = .881 for the face-to-face program and r = .889 for the online program, with both relationships significant at p < .01. The study interpreted this relationship as indicating that students who demonstrated more positive attitudes toward their foreign teachers also tended to report greater improvement in their speaking ability.
Teacher characteristics produced less consistent relationships. Teachers’ educational qualifications were not significantly related to the other variables examined. However, in the face-to-face implementation, teachers’ length of service showed a significant negative correlation with students’ speaking ability (r = −.532, p < .05). This relationship did not appear in the online implementation. The paper consequently emphasized the importance of the student-teacher relationship rather than assuming that formal qualifications or longer teaching experience necessarily translate into stronger perceived speaking outcomes.
Overall, the study concluded that English conversation lounges can remain effective even when delivered virtually. Both face-to-face and online formats were perceived as providing meaningful opportunities for English practice while helping students develop more positive attitudes toward foreign teachers. Because students’ attitudes toward their teachers were positively associated with speaking ability, the researchers stressed the importance of rapport, trust, and meaningful interaction between students and foreign English teachers. They further recommended that universities consider online conversation lounges as a means of reaching students who may be unable to participate regularly in face-to-face sessions.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to research on out-of-class language learning and technology-mediated English-language education by providing a direct comparison of the same university conversation-lounge program before and during its transition to online delivery. Conducted across the 2019 and 2020 implementations, it captures an unusual natural transition brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrates that students and teachers perceived both delivery modes as similarly beneficial.
Its findings also highlight an important pedagogical dimension of language learning: the quality of the relationship students develop with their foreign teachers may matter alongside the mode through which instruction or interaction occurs. The strong positive associations between students’ attitudes toward foreign teachers and speaking ability in both face-to-face and online environments provide empirical support within this study for designing conversation programs around meaningful interaction and rapport rather than technology alone.
Keywords: English lounges, speaking ability, attitude toward foreign teachers, teachers’ educational qualification, teachers’ length of service
Publication Information
The paper was published in the proceedings of the 2021 Second International Conference on Innovative Technology Convergence (CITC). The proceedings carry IEEE publication information, and the paper was assigned DOI 10.1109/CITC54365.2021.00011.
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.
Teaching Styles, Students’ Motivation, and Grit as Correlates of Students’ Performance in English
A research paper presented as a conference paper and subsequently published in an academic journal
Teaching Styles, Students’ Motivation, and Grit as Correlates of Students’ Performance in English
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya and Marie Charmaine P. Igwe
Business, Education, Social Sciences, and Technology, Vol. 1, No. 1, July 2025
DOI 10.69478/BEST2025v1n1a006.
Research Summary
Factors associated with both teachers and students influence the teaching and learning of English as a second or foreign language. This study examined several of these factors by investigating the relationships between teachers’ teaching styles, students’ motivation to learn English, students’ grit, and students’ English performance at a university in South Korea. The study conceptualized teaching style through four dimensions—teacher-student interaction, decision-making negotiation, teaching structuring, and behavioral control—and examined students’ motivation in terms of instrumental and integrative orientations. Grit was understood as students’ passion and perseverance in pursuing their goals despite challenges and setbacks.
The study employed a descriptive survey research design. Participants were students enrolled in mandatory English courses at a South Korean university and their foreign English teachers. The study invited two classes from each of 22 English teachers to participate, resulting in 385 student respondents from a potential pool of more than 600 students. Data were collected online through Google Forms using questionnaire items adopted from previously validated instruments. Students evaluated their own motivation and grit as well as the teaching styles demonstrated by their English teachers.
Unlike studies relying exclusively on students’ self-reported perceptions of their language ability, this research assessed English performance through a 25-item proficiency test covering five areas: vocabulary, correct grammar form, answering questions, combining sentences, and word sequencing. Frequency analysis and mean computation described the variables, while correlation analysis determined the relationships between English performance and teaching style, motivation, and grit. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS.
The results categorized the students’ overall English performance as moderately proficient, with an aggregated mean score of 2.32. Their strongest areas were vocabulary and answering questions, both classified as proficient. Correct grammar form and word sequencing fell within the moderately proficient range, while combining sentences emerged as their weakest area, with a mean score of 1.45 and a classification of less proficient. The results therefore suggested that although students demonstrated competence in selected aspects of English, important gaps remained, particularly in sentence construction.
Students generally perceived their teachers as frequently demonstrating all four dimensions of teaching style. Teaching structuring received the highest mean rating (4.45), followed by behavioral control (4.41), decision-making negotiation (4.35), and teacher-student interaction (4.32). The overall teaching-style mean of 4.38 indicated that these teaching behaviors were frequently observed across the English classes included in the study.
The findings also showed that students possessed a high overall level of motivation to learn English, although they were more integratively motivated than instrumentally motivated. Integrative motivation registered a mean of 4.27 compared with 3.84 for instrumental motivation. This indicated a stronger orientation toward learning English for engagement with English-speaking communities and cultures than toward purely practical benefits such as academic requirements, employment, or career advancement. The students’ mean grit score of 3.01, meanwhile, was interpreted as a moderate level of grit, with variation among students in their perseverance and passion toward their goals.
Correlation analysis revealed that all four dimensions of teaching style were significantly and positively associated with students’ English performance, although the relationships were weak. Teacher-student interaction correlated with English performance at r = .135, decision-making negotiation at r = .185, teaching structuring at r = .168, and behavioral control at r = .162. When the dimensions were combined, overall teaching style showed a significant positive correlation of r = .175 (p = .001) with students’ English performance. Among the teaching-style dimensions, decision-making negotiation exhibited the strongest relationship with English performance.
The two forms of motivation produced different results. Integrative motivation was significantly and positively correlated with English performance (r = .207, p < .001), the strongest positive correlation among the principal variables reported in the study. Instrumental motivation, however, was not significantly related to English performance (r = −.069, p = .176). When the study combined instrumental and integrative motivation into overall motivation, the resulting relationship with English performance was also not statistically significant. Thus, the findings suggested that motivation type, rather than motivation as a single overall construct, was relevant to students’ English performance in this sample.
One of the study’s most unexpected findings concerned grit. Students’ grit was significantly but negatively correlated with their English performance (r = −.106, p = .038). In other words, within this particular sample, higher grit scores were associated with slightly lower English-performance scores. This result contrasted with previous research cited in the paper reporting positive relationships among grit, motivation, and English-language performance. Given the weak magnitude and unexpected direction of the relationship, the study recommended further examination through replication, particularly to clarify the role of grit in English-language learning.
Overall, the study demonstrated that teacher-related and student-related factors were associated with English performance in different ways. Effective teaching-style dimensions showed consistent positive relationships with performance, while integrative—but not instrumental—motivation was positively associated with students’ English proficiency. The unexpected negative relationship involving grit highlighted the need for further investigation rather than assuming that perseverance necessarily translates directly into higher language-test performance.
The findings also carried practical implications for English-language instruction. Because students performed relatively well in vocabulary and answering questions but struggled particularly with combining sentences, the paper recommended interventions to strengthen grammatical and sentence-construction skills. Teachers were also encouraged to continue emphasizing effective classroom practices involving interaction, decision-making, lesson structuring, and behavioral management, while incorporating activities that strengthen students’ integrative motivation to learn English.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to research on English-language performance by examining teacher and learner variables within the same analytical framework. Rather than treating English achievement solely as a function of students’ abilities or motivation, it examined how teaching style, motivational orientation, and grit related individually to measured English performance among university students in South Korea.
A particularly useful contribution is the disaggregation of teaching style into four observable dimensions. The finding that teacher-student interaction, decision-making negotiation, teaching structuring, and behavioral control were all significantly and positively associated with English performance suggests that classroom teaching practices may be relevant across both the interpersonal and organizational dimensions of instruction.
The distinction between integrative and instrumental motivation is likewise significant. Although the students reported high levels of both, only integrative motivation demonstrated a significant positive relationship with English performance. This finding reinforces the value of examining different motivational orientations separately rather than treating motivation as a single undifferentiated construct.
Finally, the unexpected negative association between grit and English performance raises a question worthy of further investigation. Rather than providing definitive evidence that grit impairs language learning, the finding identifies an area requiring replication and more detailed examination of the conditions under which perseverance and sustained effort contribute to—or fail to translate into—English-language achievement. The paper itself explicitly recommends replication to ascertain this result.
Keywords: grit; motivation to learn English; students’ performance in English; teaching styles
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.
Teachers’ Commitment and Students’ Performance in English at a University in South Korea
A research paper published in a Scopus-indexed journal
Teachers’ Commitment and Students’ Performance in English at a University in South Korea
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya, Joung-Hyun Ham, and Hyun-Jung Min
Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol. 8, No. S9, May 2015, pp. 228–233
DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2015/v8iS9/68306
Research Summary
Teachers play a central role in students’ academic development, but effective teaching may depend on more than professional knowledge and instructional competence. The extent to which teachers are committed to their work and to the institutions they serve may also influence how they perform their responsibilities and, ultimately, how their students learn. This study examined the relationship between teachers’ commitment and students’ performance in English at a university in South Korea, with particular attention to two dimensions of commitment: commitment to job and commitment to organization.
The study involved 15 foreign English teachers and 420 students. The participating teachers were teaching English to Korean students learning the language as non-native speakers, placing the teachers in a professional environment that required them to address not only differences in language ability but also cultural differences between themselves and their students. Teachers assessed their own levels of commitment to their job and organization through a questionnaire, while students’ performance was measured using their test scores in writing, listening, and speaking.
A descriptive research design was employed. Frequency counts and means were used to describe teachers’ levels of commitment and students’ English performance, while regression analysis was used to examine whether commitment to job and commitment to organization predicted performance in each of the three language areas.
The teachers reported being committed both to their job and to their organization. However, their mean commitment-to-job score (4.00) was slightly higher than their commitment-to-organization score (3.80), suggesting somewhat stronger identification with the work of teaching itself than with the institution in which they were employed.
Students, meanwhile, demonstrated generally high performance across the three English-language areas, with their strongest performance occurring in speaking. Regression analyses showed that, when considered together, commitment to job and commitment to organization did not significantly predict students’ performance in writing or listening. The same overall pattern was found for speaking: the regression model containing both commitment variables was not statistically significant.
An important result nevertheless emerged at the individual-predictor level. Commitment to job was significantly associated with students’ speaking performance (p = .042), whereas commitment to organization was not. The finding suggests that teachers’ dedication to the actual work of teaching may have particular relevance to an interactive language skill such as speaking, where student development depends heavily on classroom engagement, communication, encouragement, and sustained interaction with the teacher.
The study therefore presents a more nuanced picture than the simple assumption that greater teacher commitment automatically produces better student performance. Commitment to the organization itself did not emerge as a significant predictor of achievement in the three English skills examined, while commitment to the teaching job showed a significant relationship only with speaking. The results suggest that different forms of teacher commitment may relate differently to specific dimensions of student learning.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to research on teacher commitment and language-learning outcomes by distinguishing commitment to one’s teaching job from commitment to the employing organization and examining their relationships with separate English skills rather than with a single overall academic-performance measure. Its finding concerning speaking raises an important possibility: in communicative language education, teachers’ dedication to the actual work of teaching may be particularly relevant to learning outcomes that depend heavily on direct teacher-student interaction. The study also provides an early empirical foundation for further investigation of teacher-related factors affecting English-language performance in the South Korean university context.
Keywords: teacher commitment, commitment to job, organizational commitment, English performance, speaking, listening, writing, South Korea
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.
Students’ Performance in English: Effects of Teachers’ Leadership Behavior and Students’ Motivation
A research paper published in a Scopus-indexed journal
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya and Marie Charmaine P. Igwe
Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn), Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2025, pp. 91–102
DOI: 10.11591/edulearn.v19i1.21680
Research Summary
Teachers do more than deliver instruction; they also exercise leadership in guiding, motivating, and managing students throughout the learning process. In foreign-language education, this leadership role may be particularly important because successful language learning requires active student participation and sustained motivation. This study investigated how English teachers’ leadership behavior relates to students’ performance in English and examined whether students’ instrumental and integrative motivation mediate that relationship.
Teacher leadership was examined through two dimensions derived from the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ): initiating structure, which emphasizes task organization and goal attainment, and consideration, which emphasizes interpersonal relationships, respect, trust, and concern for students. Motivation toward learning English was examined through instrumental motivation, in which the language is learned for practical or external benefits, and integrative motivation, associated with interest in communicating with and understanding people from other linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
The study employed a descriptive survey design involving 911 university students in South Korea who were enrolled in mandatory English courses across different academic departments. Students evaluated their teachers’ leadership behavior and their own motivation toward learning English. Leadership items were drawn from the LBDQ, while motivation measures were adapted from Gardner’s Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). Students’ English performance was assessed using a 25-item grammar proficiency test covering vocabulary, correct grammatical form, answering questions, combining sentences, and word sequencing. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses, and parallel mediation analysis using Hayes’ PROCESS procedure.
Students perceived their English teachers as demonstrating high levels of both leadership behaviors, although consideration was more strongly manifested than initiating structure. The mean for initiating structure was 4.06, while the pattern of responses for consideration showed that nearly 88% of students rated their teachers high or very high on this dimension. Students also reported high levels of both forms of motivation, with integrative motivation (M = 3.96) exceeding instrumental motivation (M = 3.55).
Performance on the English test was generally satisfactory. Of the 911 students, 542 obtained scores of 12 or higher, while 369 scored 11 or below. Analysis of specific areas showed that students were proficient in vocabulary, correct grammatical form, and answering questions but only moderately proficient in combining sentences and word sequencing.
Correlation analyses showed that both initiating structure and consideration were positively related to students’ instrumental and integrative motivation and to English performance. Integrative motivation was also positively and significantly correlated with English performance, whereas instrumental motivation was not significantly correlated with performance at the bivariate level.
The regression and mediation analyses revealed a more differentiated pattern. When the two leadership dimensions were considered simultaneously, consideration—but not initiating structure—significantly predicted students’ English performance. Consideration also significantly predicted both instrumental and integrative motivation. When leadership behavior and both forms of motivation were entered together, consideration and integrative motivation had positive significant coefficients, whereas instrumental motivation had a significant negative coefficient.
Most importantly, the mediation analysis showed that neither instrumental nor integrative motivation significantly mediated the relationship between initiating structure and English performance. In contrast, both forms of motivation significantly mediated the relationship between consideration and students’ English performance. The direct effect of consideration remained significant after the mediators were included, indicating partial rather than complete mediation.
Overall, the findings emphasize the potential importance of the relational dimension of teacher leadership in language learning. Students may benefit when English teachers combine pedagogical competence with leadership behaviors characterized by rapport, respect, accessibility, and concern for students. The findings further suggest that students’ reasons for learning English form part of the pathway through which this people-oriented leadership behavior relates to their academic performance.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to research on teacher leadership and second/foreign-language learning by integrating teacher leadership behavior, student motivation, and measured English performance within a mediation framework. Rather than examining teacher and learner variables independently, it investigates a possible mechanism linking them: teacher leadership → student motivation → English performance. Its finding that consideration, rather than initiating structure, was associated with performance through both instrumental and integrative motivational pathways highlights the potential importance of relationship-oriented teacher leadership in the foreign-language classroom. The study also provides a foundation for further research examining how teacher behavior and different forms of learner motivation jointly contribute to English-language achievement.
Keywords: teacher leadership, consideration, initiating structure, instrumental motivation, integrative motivation, English performance, mediation, South Korea
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.
Sexist Language: Gender-Linked Expressions in Official Communications in the Academic Workplace
Sexist Language: Gender-Linked Expressions in Official Communications in the Academic Workplace
Estrella F. Fajardo, Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya, and Joung-Hyun Ham
Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development, Vol. 11, No. 3, March 2020, pp. 2546–2551.
Research Summary
Language used in academic institutions does more than convey information; it can also reflect social assumptions about gender and reinforce linguistic conventions that privilege one gender over another. Although universities are expected to promote equality and gender awareness, gender-biased expressions may continue to appear in routine institutional communication. This study investigated the occurrence of sexist language in official communications within an academic workplace, focusing on gender-linked words and expressions appearing in university memorandums.
The study examined 14 official memorandums issued by members of the administrative and management councils of the respondent university. Ten of the memorandums were written by male officials and four by female officials. Each memorandum was manually examined for words and expressions identified in the literature as forms of sexist English usage. The occurrences were counted and subsequently classified according to the type of gender bias they represented.
The analysis found gender-biased expressions in seven of the ten memorandums written by male officials, while none of the four memorandums written by female officials contained expressions classified as sexist. Across the 14 documents, five principal gender-linked forms were identified: freshmen, chairman, Mrs., his/her, and himself/herself. The first two occurred most frequently, with freshmen appearing three times and chairman appearing twice; Mrs. also appeared twice, while his/her and himself/herself each appeared once.
The identified expressions represented several forms of gender bias. The use of freshmen illustrated the masculine generic, in which a masculine linguistic form is used to refer to a mixed-gender population. The use of chairman, including in reference to female department heads, represented gender-linked occupational or positional terminology. The use of Mrs. for female recipients while male recipients were addressed as Mr. reflected non-parallel treatment because Mrs. identifies marital status whereas Mr. does not. Finally, expressions such as his/her and himself/herself were classified as forms that habitually place the masculine form before the feminine.
The study also observed a notable difference according to the sex of the memorandum writers: the gender-biased expressions identified in the sample appeared exclusively in documents written by male officials. The authors cautioned, however, that it was difficult to determine whether such language was used intentionally or simply reflected established linguistic habits. This distinction is important because gender-biased language may persist through convention even when speakers or writers do not consciously intend to discriminate.
Overall, the findings indicate that gender-linked language remained present in formal academic communication within the institution examined. The study therefore drew attention to the need for greater awareness of gender-inclusive alternatives in official correspondence, particularly for generic references, professional titles, forms of address, and paired gender expressions.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to discussions of gender-inclusive language in academic institutions by examining sexism not in literary texts or informal speech but in actual official workplace documents. Its value lies particularly in demonstrating how seemingly routine linguistic conventions—such as freshmen, chairman, and gender-asymmetrical forms of address—can persist in institutional communication. Although exploratory and limited in scope, the study provides a useful starting point for larger investigations of how gender-inclusive language is adopted, resisted, or inconsistently practiced within educational institutions.
Keywords: sexist language, gender-linked expressions, gender-inclusive language, academic workplace, official communication, institutional discourse
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 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 and Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya
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.
