constantino ballena | De La Salle University-Dasmarinas (original) (raw)
Papers by constantino ballena
Philippine Social Science Journal, 2024
This qualitative phenomenological study explores the experiences of reading teachers from public ... more This qualitative phenomenological study explores the experiences
of reading teachers from public junior high schools in Silang, Cavite, Philippines, who have adopted online distance learning (ODL) for teaching reading. The study aims to understand the challenges and strategies involved in ODL reading instruction. Using Moustakas’ (1994) transcendental phenomenology, data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with seven teachers. The analysis revealed that teaching reading via ODL requires meticulous planning,
interactive activities, and multimedia materials. Teachers faced challenges such as technical difficulties, limited time, and ensuring assessment authenticity, but also noted benefits like accessible learning materials and engaging online applications. The study concludes that comprehensive training and support for teachers are crucial for effective ODL implementation. It recommends future research to explore the perspectives of students and parents to gain a more thorough understanding of ODL’s impact on reading instruction. These insights
are vital for educators and policymakers to optimize ODL practices.
Philippine Social Science Journal, 2024
This study investigated the speaking anxiety experienced by college seminarians in online English... more This study investigated the speaking anxiety experienced by college seminarians in online English classes. The research aimed to describe the causes, effects, and coping strategies related to this anxiety. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, data were collected through observations, in-depth interviews, and peer debriefing with nine purposively sampled participants. The analysis identified key themes such as fear of judgment, lack of confidence, and negative teaching styles as primary causes of anxiety. Manifestations included increased use of fillers, stuttering, and avoidance behaviors. Participants employed coping mechanisms like positive self-talk, regular practice, and prayer. The study concludes that supportive teaching practices significantly reduce speaking anxiety. Practically, the findings suggest that educators should create positive, interactive learning environments to alleviate anxiety and enhance language acquisition. Future research should explore speaking anxiety in diverse educational contexts and develop targeted interventions to mitigate this issue further.
Journal of Institutional Research South East Asia, 2021
The purpose of this paper is to examine extant literature which focused on remote learning in the... more The purpose of this paper is to examine extant literature which focused on remote learning in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It follows qualitative research design particularly thematic synthesis in reviewing and analyzing 102 research articles published from February 2020 to December 2020. These articles, which reflect the experiences of 34 countries across the globe, are methodically selected following inclusion and exclusion criteria. The thematic analysis results in four major themes which are: 1) concerns about the shift to remote learning, 2) impact of remote learning, 3) challenges in the shift to remote learning; and 4) coping with the challenges in remote learning. These four salient themes show how the transition from face-to-face to remote education has confronted and made an impact on all teachers, students, parents, and administrators. These circumstances reaffirm the opportunities to harness educational institutions’ resilience, motivation, and competencies as participants in the education process. While national and institutional support is made available, it is clear that both the pandemic and remote learning have obliged stakeholders of education to become more inventive and collaborative in the teaching-learning process as a way to cope with the challenges. The study recommends conducting a more inclusive literature review of relevant research articles that are published beginning 2021 to determine how all stakeholders of the teaching and learning process have adjusted during the second year of this crisis.
ICERI2010 Proceedings, 2010
Philippine Social Science Journal
The study explored the CPDA framework in analyzing political interviews, particularly with Presid... more The study explored the CPDA framework in analyzing political interviews, particularly with President Donald Trump on the US trade war with China. The study mainly explored how political power was revealed in political interviews with President Trump and what these political interviews revealed about the contexts of President Trump. The corpus constituted ten political interview episodes coded as PIE1, PIE2, and so forth with an average length of 11minutes 26 seconds. The results revealed political power in the political interviews with President Trump as evidenced by his unusually loud volume, unusually low pitch, and falling intonation of expression structures and his positive evaluation of US or Our action and negative evaluation of Them or Their action as underpinned by semantic polarization. Moreover, ideological polarization, rhetoric, and practical argumentation uncovered President Trump's context of "America First" thought, his hegemony, high extraversion, low a...
Philippine Social Science Journal
This study explored the online Business English teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to ... more This study explored the online Business English teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to understand its essence in Business English teaching. It sought to uncover what they thought about PCK in Business English lessons and how they developed their PCK as they engaged themselves in the everyday teaching of Business English. Hermeneutic phenomenology was employed since the purpose of the study concerns the reflection and interpretation of the online Business English teachers' experiences. The participants of the study were six online Business English teachers from one ESL Company in the Philippines catering to business professionals. They were chosen through homogeneous purposive sampling. The data collection included in-depth interviewing following semi-structured interviews and observations to gather rich descriptions of the participants' reflection and interpretation of their experiences. The data were analyzed using the six-step data analysis of Smith et al. (2021...
Philippine Social Science Journal
This paper is the first formal empirical study on electronic evidence (EE) since the promulgation... more This paper is the first formal empirical study on electronic evidence (EE) since the promulgation of Rules on Electronic Evidence (REE) by the Philippine Supreme Court in 2001. A basic qualitative research design was employed in the study. A total of 29 litigation lawyers and 13 trial judges from the Province of Cavite and the National Capital Region were the participants in the study. A qualitative survey questionnaire was used to gather data from the participants through Google Docs. Results showed that EE was more commonly presented in criminal cases, a few in civil cases, and none in quasi-judicial and administrative cases. Text messages were found to be the most frequently presented EE at trial. Results further revealed three major themes such as (1) admissibility of EE, (2) authentication of EE, and (3) suggestions on the implementation of REE. The vagueness of REE provisions on the admissibility of electronic evidence results in varying interpretations of judges, which ul...
Philippine Social Science Journal
This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by grad... more This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by graduate students who did papers that solely followed qualitative research interviewing. Corpus linguistics is a methodological approach employed to analyze patterns of language use in naturally occurring texts. The paper investigated the breadth and structure of the interview questions and the unproductive questions found in the corpus. The corpus consisted of 7,516 interview questions examined following the structure-breadth-function typology of questions as a framework. The corpus was analyzed by identifying the patterns of the interview questions for these to be properly typologized. Results revealed that Wh- questions (5,365 of the 7,516 questions or 71.381%) were the most frequently asked interview questions, followed by the yes-no questions (1,455 or 19.359%). Tell-Explain-Describe or TED questions (6 or 0.106%) had the least frequency of occurrence. Additionally, closed-ended quest...
International Journal of Research, 2019
This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountere... more This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountered in writing their thesis. Two dissertation writers and 12 thesis writers participated in the study, which was conducted during the Academic Year 2018-2019. Semistructured interviewing, that is, with the aid of a validated and pilot-tested interview protocol was employed in collecting data; interview transcripts constituted the collected qualitative data. The qualitative data were analyzed following three major stages, viz., open-coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The rigorous analysis resulted in four major themes, the findings of the study: 1) academic preparation, 2) community support, 3) writing hindrances, and 4) personal motivation. Good academic preparations, genuine community support, and personal motivation, be it intrinsic or extrinsic, serve as indispensable bludgeon in the thesis writers’ challenging journey towards the completion of their degree. These factors...
International Journal of Research , 2019
This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountere... more This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountered in writing their thesis. Two dissertation writers and 12 thesis writers participated in the study, which was conducted during the Academic Year 2018-2019. Semistructured interviewing, that is, with the aid of a validated and pilot-tested interview protocol was employed in collecting data; interview transcripts constituted the collected qualitative data. The qualitative data were analyzed following three major stages, viz., open-coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The rigorous analysis resulted in four major themes, the findings of the study: 1) academic preparation, 2) community support, 3) writing hindrances, and 4) personal motivation. Good academic preparations, genuine community support, and personal motivation, be it intrinsic or extrinsic, serve as indispensable bludgeon in the thesis writers' challenging journey towards the completion of their degree. These factors make them seize their theses (carpe theses) and finally finish the same with great satisfaction. An in-depth qualitative study could be done on how thesis advisers or supervisors guide their advisees in the conduct of the latter's theses or dissertations. The former's advising framework and techniques could be examined. Dealing with difficult advisees is, likewise, a worthwhile inquiry that could be carried out qualitatively.
Philippine Social Science Journal (PSSJ) , 2021
This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by grad... more This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by graduate students who did papers that solely followed qualitative research interviewing as their data collection technique. Corpus linguistics is a methodological approach employed to analyze patterns of language use in naturally occurring texts. The paper investigated the breadth and structure of the interview questions and the unproductive questions found in the corpus. The corpus consisted of 7,516 interview questions examined following the structure-breadth-function typology of questions as a framework. The corpus was analyzed by identifying the patterns of the interview questions for these to be properly typologized. Results revealed that Wh-questions (5,365 of the 7,516 questions or 71.381%) were the most frequently asked interview questions, followed by the yes-no questions (1,455 or 19.359%). Tell-Explain-Describe or TED questions (6 or 0.106%) had the least frequency of occurrence. Additionally, closed-ended questions (3,977 or 52.914%) were more prevalent than open-ended questions (3,539 or 47.086%). While a total of 802 prefaced questions were identified with so-prefaced questions as the most pervasive (446 or 56.611%). Finally, the study results showed that leading and multiple questions constituted the unproductive interview questions, the latter being the most preponderant with 700 or 55.556% of the 1,260 unproductive questions. The subcategorizations yes-no and wh-leading questions; and multiple yes-no, multiple yes-no-wh-, and multiple wh-(serial and single) questions are nowhere to be found in the available literature on interview questions, thus adding to the value of the present study. The quality of qualitative research interviewing is facilitated by the typology of questions interviewers asked based on the structure and breadth of the questions. Generally, the whopen-ended type is the more appropriate one in qualitative research interviewing.
Philippine Social Science Journal, 2024
This qualitative phenomenological study explores the experiences of reading teachers from public ... more This qualitative phenomenological study explores the experiences
of reading teachers from public junior high schools in Silang, Cavite, Philippines, who have adopted online distance learning (ODL) for teaching reading. The study aims to understand the challenges and strategies involved in ODL reading instruction. Using Moustakas’ (1994) transcendental phenomenology, data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with seven teachers. The analysis revealed that teaching reading via ODL requires meticulous planning,
interactive activities, and multimedia materials. Teachers faced challenges such as technical difficulties, limited time, and ensuring assessment authenticity, but also noted benefits like accessible learning materials and engaging online applications. The study concludes that comprehensive training and support for teachers are crucial for effective ODL implementation. It recommends future research to explore the perspectives of students and parents to gain a more thorough understanding of ODL’s impact on reading instruction. These insights
are vital for educators and policymakers to optimize ODL practices.
Philippine Social Science Journal, 2024
This study investigated the speaking anxiety experienced by college seminarians in online English... more This study investigated the speaking anxiety experienced by college seminarians in online English classes. The research aimed to describe the causes, effects, and coping strategies related to this anxiety. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, data were collected through observations, in-depth interviews, and peer debriefing with nine purposively sampled participants. The analysis identified key themes such as fear of judgment, lack of confidence, and negative teaching styles as primary causes of anxiety. Manifestations included increased use of fillers, stuttering, and avoidance behaviors. Participants employed coping mechanisms like positive self-talk, regular practice, and prayer. The study concludes that supportive teaching practices significantly reduce speaking anxiety. Practically, the findings suggest that educators should create positive, interactive learning environments to alleviate anxiety and enhance language acquisition. Future research should explore speaking anxiety in diverse educational contexts and develop targeted interventions to mitigate this issue further.
Journal of Institutional Research South East Asia, 2021
The purpose of this paper is to examine extant literature which focused on remote learning in the... more The purpose of this paper is to examine extant literature which focused on remote learning in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It follows qualitative research design particularly thematic synthesis in reviewing and analyzing 102 research articles published from February 2020 to December 2020. These articles, which reflect the experiences of 34 countries across the globe, are methodically selected following inclusion and exclusion criteria. The thematic analysis results in four major themes which are: 1) concerns about the shift to remote learning, 2) impact of remote learning, 3) challenges in the shift to remote learning; and 4) coping with the challenges in remote learning. These four salient themes show how the transition from face-to-face to remote education has confronted and made an impact on all teachers, students, parents, and administrators. These circumstances reaffirm the opportunities to harness educational institutions’ resilience, motivation, and competencies as participants in the education process. While national and institutional support is made available, it is clear that both the pandemic and remote learning have obliged stakeholders of education to become more inventive and collaborative in the teaching-learning process as a way to cope with the challenges. The study recommends conducting a more inclusive literature review of relevant research articles that are published beginning 2021 to determine how all stakeholders of the teaching and learning process have adjusted during the second year of this crisis.
ICERI2010 Proceedings, 2010
Philippine Social Science Journal
The study explored the CPDA framework in analyzing political interviews, particularly with Presid... more The study explored the CPDA framework in analyzing political interviews, particularly with President Donald Trump on the US trade war with China. The study mainly explored how political power was revealed in political interviews with President Trump and what these political interviews revealed about the contexts of President Trump. The corpus constituted ten political interview episodes coded as PIE1, PIE2, and so forth with an average length of 11minutes 26 seconds. The results revealed political power in the political interviews with President Trump as evidenced by his unusually loud volume, unusually low pitch, and falling intonation of expression structures and his positive evaluation of US or Our action and negative evaluation of Them or Their action as underpinned by semantic polarization. Moreover, ideological polarization, rhetoric, and practical argumentation uncovered President Trump's context of "America First" thought, his hegemony, high extraversion, low a...
Philippine Social Science Journal
This study explored the online Business English teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to ... more This study explored the online Business English teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to understand its essence in Business English teaching. It sought to uncover what they thought about PCK in Business English lessons and how they developed their PCK as they engaged themselves in the everyday teaching of Business English. Hermeneutic phenomenology was employed since the purpose of the study concerns the reflection and interpretation of the online Business English teachers' experiences. The participants of the study were six online Business English teachers from one ESL Company in the Philippines catering to business professionals. They were chosen through homogeneous purposive sampling. The data collection included in-depth interviewing following semi-structured interviews and observations to gather rich descriptions of the participants' reflection and interpretation of their experiences. The data were analyzed using the six-step data analysis of Smith et al. (2021...
Philippine Social Science Journal
This paper is the first formal empirical study on electronic evidence (EE) since the promulgation... more This paper is the first formal empirical study on electronic evidence (EE) since the promulgation of Rules on Electronic Evidence (REE) by the Philippine Supreme Court in 2001. A basic qualitative research design was employed in the study. A total of 29 litigation lawyers and 13 trial judges from the Province of Cavite and the National Capital Region were the participants in the study. A qualitative survey questionnaire was used to gather data from the participants through Google Docs. Results showed that EE was more commonly presented in criminal cases, a few in civil cases, and none in quasi-judicial and administrative cases. Text messages were found to be the most frequently presented EE at trial. Results further revealed three major themes such as (1) admissibility of EE, (2) authentication of EE, and (3) suggestions on the implementation of REE. The vagueness of REE provisions on the admissibility of electronic evidence results in varying interpretations of judges, which ul...
Philippine Social Science Journal
This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by grad... more This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by graduate students who did papers that solely followed qualitative research interviewing. Corpus linguistics is a methodological approach employed to analyze patterns of language use in naturally occurring texts. The paper investigated the breadth and structure of the interview questions and the unproductive questions found in the corpus. The corpus consisted of 7,516 interview questions examined following the structure-breadth-function typology of questions as a framework. The corpus was analyzed by identifying the patterns of the interview questions for these to be properly typologized. Results revealed that Wh- questions (5,365 of the 7,516 questions or 71.381%) were the most frequently asked interview questions, followed by the yes-no questions (1,455 or 19.359%). Tell-Explain-Describe or TED questions (6 or 0.106%) had the least frequency of occurrence. Additionally, closed-ended quest...
International Journal of Research, 2019
This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountere... more This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountered in writing their thesis. Two dissertation writers and 12 thesis writers participated in the study, which was conducted during the Academic Year 2018-2019. Semistructured interviewing, that is, with the aid of a validated and pilot-tested interview protocol was employed in collecting data; interview transcripts constituted the collected qualitative data. The qualitative data were analyzed following three major stages, viz., open-coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The rigorous analysis resulted in four major themes, the findings of the study: 1) academic preparation, 2) community support, 3) writing hindrances, and 4) personal motivation. Good academic preparations, genuine community support, and personal motivation, be it intrinsic or extrinsic, serve as indispensable bludgeon in the thesis writers’ challenging journey towards the completion of their degree. These factors...
International Journal of Research , 2019
This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountere... more This present study examined the different experiences and challenges graduate students encountered in writing their thesis. Two dissertation writers and 12 thesis writers participated in the study, which was conducted during the Academic Year 2018-2019. Semistructured interviewing, that is, with the aid of a validated and pilot-tested interview protocol was employed in collecting data; interview transcripts constituted the collected qualitative data. The qualitative data were analyzed following three major stages, viz., open-coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The rigorous analysis resulted in four major themes, the findings of the study: 1) academic preparation, 2) community support, 3) writing hindrances, and 4) personal motivation. Good academic preparations, genuine community support, and personal motivation, be it intrinsic or extrinsic, serve as indispensable bludgeon in the thesis writers' challenging journey towards the completion of their degree. These factors make them seize their theses (carpe theses) and finally finish the same with great satisfaction. An in-depth qualitative study could be done on how thesis advisers or supervisors guide their advisees in the conduct of the latter's theses or dissertations. The former's advising framework and techniques could be examined. Dealing with difficult advisees is, likewise, a worthwhile inquiry that could be carried out qualitatively.
Philippine Social Science Journal (PSSJ) , 2021
This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by grad... more This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by graduate students who did papers that solely followed qualitative research interviewing as their data collection technique. Corpus linguistics is a methodological approach employed to analyze patterns of language use in naturally occurring texts. The paper investigated the breadth and structure of the interview questions and the unproductive questions found in the corpus. The corpus consisted of 7,516 interview questions examined following the structure-breadth-function typology of questions as a framework. The corpus was analyzed by identifying the patterns of the interview questions for these to be properly typologized. Results revealed that Wh-questions (5,365 of the 7,516 questions or 71.381%) were the most frequently asked interview questions, followed by the yes-no questions (1,455 or 19.359%). Tell-Explain-Describe or TED questions (6 or 0.106%) had the least frequency of occurrence. Additionally, closed-ended questions (3,977 or 52.914%) were more prevalent than open-ended questions (3,539 or 47.086%). While a total of 802 prefaced questions were identified with so-prefaced questions as the most pervasive (446 or 56.611%). Finally, the study results showed that leading and multiple questions constituted the unproductive interview questions, the latter being the most preponderant with 700 or 55.556% of the 1,260 unproductive questions. The subcategorizations yes-no and wh-leading questions; and multiple yes-no, multiple yes-no-wh-, and multiple wh-(serial and single) questions are nowhere to be found in the available literature on interview questions, thus adding to the value of the present study. The quality of qualitative research interviewing is facilitated by the typology of questions interviewers asked based on the structure and breadth of the questions. Generally, the whopen-ended type is the more appropriate one in qualitative research interviewing.