48 researcher obtaining personal information of the participants. Then, the next step
was conducting in-depth interviews. The in-depth interviews were all recorded and transcribed. Therefore, the recordings were converted into texts.
After having the texts from the in-depth interviews, the transcriptions were all coded. Hence, coding the transcription allowed the researcher to narrow the text
into several meanings. It led me, as the following step, to generate the meanings which later used in analyzing the phenomenon in this study.
There were another four steps in this research procedure. Those steps were describing the texts, interpreting the texts, doing member checking, and writing the
final version. The desc ription of the participants’ lived experience consisting of
both pre-figured and emerging meanings were made in describing the texts. In addition, the description of the participants’ lived experience of project-based
learning was based on the fields in lived experience, namely, understanding, belief, feeling, action and intention. Further, the researcher referred back to the texts and
tried to relate it with the theories in order to make the interpretation. In addition, this study employed member checking to validate the findings. Therefore, the
participants were all asked to check both interpretation and description of their lived experience in writing academic papers. As the last step, the researcher revised the
description and interpretation based on the member checking done by the participants.
4. Components
The data gained for accomplishing this research was in the form of texts and they were gathered through the in-depth interview. Additionally, the texts were
49 reflecting the participants’ experience and their reflection on their experiences of
project based learning. In accordance with the topic of the study, the research was conducted in the
graduate program of English Language Studies ELS Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta. The reason why I conducted the research in this place was because all
of the lecturers implemented the model of project-based learning. Hence, by looking at the fact that the lecturers use project-based learning model in the process
of teaching, I attempted to look at the ELS stu dents’ lived experience of the project-
based learning. The participants for the study were three students of the graduate program
of ELS Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta from three different streams namely Education, Linguistic, and Literature. The reason why I chose those three
students from three different streams because I attempted to look at the meaning of project-based learning from three different perspectives. I limited the number of the
participants since Langdridge 2007, p. 109 stated that the samples for hermeneutics phenomenology research are likely to be small size and
homogeneous. Additionally, I chose the three participants based on the criteria which were a they were the ELS students, b they had ever experienced the
working on the projects, and c they were from three different streams. As a hermeneutic phenomenology research, the data were in the form of
texts. The nature of data was text or anecdote as a primary source from the participants which gained from in-depth interview audio-taped. As suggested by
Van Mannen 1990 that in collecting data, conversational interviewing is needed. Meriam 2002 adds that it provides a rich and abundant data. In other word, in-
