parts the lived experience were structured. In the last step, it was necessary to know the nature of data. The interviewer should understand that in-depth
interviews were used in qualitative research. Hence presenting numbers or percentage is not appropriate. Boyce and Neale 2006 stated that “Numbers and
percentage sometimes convey the impression that results can be projected to a population and this is not within the capabilities of this qualitative research
procedure.” In-depth interviews were meant to help obtain detailed information from a person. In relation with this study, it was to gain deeper understanding
about each participant and thus, it was the participants’ lived experience which were unique, different from that of somebody else’s.
3. Data Source
The data or text source could not be separated from the choice of text collection methods. It was what was yielded from the text collection methods
which became the source of information to answer research questions. As observations, document collection, and interviews were chosen, then the source
would be field notes, documents, and participants. All of the sources were useful to obtain as much and as deep information as possible about the empirical and
transcendent meaning which this research aimed to answer.
a. Field Notes
Everything which happened during the observations was jotted down in the field notes. Cresswell 2012: p.216 stated that field notes were “The data
recorded during an observation...fieldnotes are text words recorded by the
researcher during an observation in a qualitative study.” Meanwhile, Bogdan Biklen 2003 defined fieldnotes as “The written account of what the researcher
hears, sees, experience, and thinks in the course of collecting and reflecting on the data in a qualitative study.” In this research, it recorded the activities in two
classes, X AK1 and X MM, from the beginning until the end of the classes. It recorded both what teachers and students did in the natural setting of the
classrooms. It also recorded anything that students said as the reaction to the learning process.
Bogdan Biklen 2003: p.116 suggested that “the first page of each set of notes...contain...when the observation was done, who did it, where the
observation took place.” That information was written before the content of the fieldnotes was presented. It also included the exact time when each different
activity happened. The field notes included the information about duration of the lesson, which class I was in, and each activity conducted in the classrooms. All
that teachers and students said and did were also recorded along with the exact time. The complete field notes were presented in appendix C-F.
b. Documents
The type of documents which was collected for this research was personal documents. Bogdan Biklen 2007: p.133 as quoted in Merriam 2009
mentioned that personal documents were “any first-person narrative that describes and individual’s actions, experience, and beliefs.” The documents obtained in this
research constituted the participants’ experience and everything that they thought, did, and felt in relation with it. Those documents were important as any sentences
that they wrote could reveal what the meaning of vocabulary learning using IPALL was. It was like what Merriam 2009 stated, “Such documents can tell the
researcher about the inner meaning of everyday events....” There were about thirty-four personal notes which were collected from
each class. It took some time for the researcher to consider which participants seemed to tell everything in a detailed way with enthusiasm. The personal notes
could somehow show their openness to tell their experience. Those who were reluctant would just write a very short story about their experience, but those who
were willing to share, told everything about it.
c. Participants
The selection of participants required some consideration. It was done in order to avoid choosing participants which were reluctant to share the lived
experience of vocabulary learning using IPALL. Cohen, Manion, Morrison 2011: p.412 stated “The issue here is of ‘fitness’ for purpose”. The interviews in
this research served the purpose of obtaining rich, in-depth texts about participants’ lived experience which enabled me to gain insights of meaning
construction in that experience. Therefore, it was important to have participants which could provide such texts.
Patton 1990: p.169 as quoted in Creswell 2012: 206 mentioned, “The standard used in choosing participants and sites is whether they are ‘information
rich’...” The site was at school and it was reliable because it was the place where vocabulary learning using IPALL occurred. Before I selected the participants, I
asked if teachers had recommendations about whom I could interview. They then
suggested some students to be interviewed. I myself checked their personal notes to see who were enthusiastic in sharing their experience about vocabulary learning
using IPALL. I tried to find students who had tendency to be willing and open to questions related to my topic so that I could obtain reach texts which enabled me
to answer my research questions. Then, after considering teachers’ and my own consideration for a quite long time, I chose two students. Rani was the one from X
AK 1 class and Revalda was the one from X MM class. They were students of a state vocational school. All of the interviews with them was conducted at school.
C. DATA PRESENTATION
There were ways to present texts about meaning of vocabulary learning using the IPALL. To make the text presentation clear, I follow the principles
according to Moustakas 1990: p.54 which consisted of individual depictions and composite depictions. Necessary quotations from famous people were also given
in the interpretation section especially when those were suitable with the themes in students’ lived experience. Quotations could work well as the illustration about
the theme being discussed. Those quotations were usually short but powerful and people tend to remember those. The verbatim examples or the anecdotes were
presented by using line-by-line approach proposed by Manen 1990: p.95. By using line-by line approach, it was easier for me to identify both pre-figured and
emergent themes that I knew under what themes the anecdotes belong to. When I wrote the anecdotes, I also wrote the code after the sentence in
order to enable readers to know which themes the anecdotes referred to. It made them easier to see how meaning was constructed and that the theme was only one
thing in the meaning construction. The whole meaning could be understood in relation with other themes as well as participants’ background and previous
horizon about vocabulary learning. The order of the data presentation which was found in chapter four was the story about participants’ life, individual depiction,
and composite depiction.
D. DATA ANALYSIS
Creswell 2012 proposes six steps in analyzing qualitative data. As the nature of data in this study was qualitative, which were empirical and
transcendent meaning obtained from participants’ lived experience, the steps that Creswell 2012 was suitable to be used in analyzing data. The six steps were 1
preparing and organizing the data for analysis, 2 exploring and coding the data, 3 coding to build description and themes, 4 reporting qualitative findings and
interpreting findings, and 5 validating the accuracy of the findings Creswell, 2012: pp.261-262. In the first step, I typed field notes that I obtained from two
observations in two classes. The field notes were written chronologically starting from the beginning up to the end of the lesson. After I finished doing it, I read the
participants’ personal notes. Then, I did verbatim of the interview results. This is what Moustakas 1990: p. 51 called as “entering into materials in timeless
immersion”. It was important because only by doing so, I was able to understand all the things which constructed meaning in students’ life especially on
vocabulary learning using the IPALL. In the second and the third steps, I read the lived experience which I had
obtained from the interviews carefully so that I obtained general description about
