becomes hermeneutical when its method is taken to be interpretive rather than purely descriptive as in transcendental phenomenology Manen, 1990.
To conduct a phenomenological hermeneutic research is to attempt to accomplish the impossible: to construct a full interpretative description of some
aspect of the life world, and yet to remain aware that lived life is always more complex than any explication of meaning can reveal Manen, 1990. Therefore,
through this study the researcher tries to describe the teachers‟ lived experience in selecting textbooks and interpret it, which aims at gaining the essential meanings
of the lived experience itself. In this study, the researcher would like to search how the teachers
experience the essence of selecting textbooks. Manen 1990 claims the word “essence” does not have to mean some fundamental core or residue of meaning;
but it can mean bringing the bodily nature of human experience into foreground. Besides, the researcher also tried to reveal how things appear directly to human
rather than through the media or cultural symbolic structures Cohen et. al., 2001: 24. That is why data was taken directly from the participant, not secondhand data
Patton, 2002: 104.
B. Nature and Source of Data
The nature of data was narrative text, getting from a sequence of in-depth interviews, artifacts collection or document checks on the selected textbooks,
te achers‟ lesson plans, syllabus, and curriculum, and field notes gained from
observations. It is in line with Miles and Huberman 1994: 9, who claim that the nature of qualitative data refers to essence of people, objects, and situation. The
“raw” experience is then converted into words. The words can be the researcher‟s description of what she sees, hears, and finds during the interviews, observations,
artifacts collection. The participants of this study were two English teachers of different SMA
in Yogyakarta. The participants were chosen based on purposive sampling. They are selected because of their unique status, experience, and knowledge related to
the phenomenon – textbooks selection. As the focus of the study is the teachers,
the selection was based on the source of needs of teacher both personal and professional needs such as age, sex, cultural background, educational background,
teacher‟s language proficiency, teacher‟s training experience and teaching experience Matsuhara, 1998: 241.
The first teacher is Mr. Yudi and the second one is Bu Ami. Mr. Yudi has been teaching for 27 years and has been experiencing four different curricula. He
had experienced teaching in both private and state senior high schools. Today, he is teaching in one of the most favorite and considerable state senior high schools
in Yogyakarta. Meanwhile, Bu Ami has been teaching for 15 years and has been experiencing three different curricula. Before teaching a state senior high school
in Bantul today, she taught a private university. Both Mr. Yudi and Bu Ami had attended various teaching trainings. This variation might provide different kinds
of institutional needs such as the learners‟ needs, learning expectation, and others. Besides, the different age and sex were also considered to provide different kinds
of needs. In deciding the setting, the researcher considered what McMillan and
Schumacher say that choosing a site is a negotiation process to obtain freedom of
access to a site that is suitable for the research problems and feasible for the researcher‟s resource of time, mobility and skills 2001: 342. Considering the
accessibility, the settings of this research were at the schools where the teachers work for. The researcher has a good access to meet the teachers since the
researcher lives in Yogyakarta too. The data collection, covering interviews, field observation, artifact collection, and re-interviews, was carried out in May. The
interviews were conducted in relaxed situation in order to gain the deeper data from the participants.
C. Data Gathering Instruments
To attain the research goal on describing the teachers‟ lived experience, some instruments were needed to gather the data. In this study, the main
instrument was in-depth interview, which was in the form of open-ended questions. The questions guideline was prepared although the interview will use
snowballing; which means that the interview would follow the answers of the participants that would lead to another question. The interview was audio-taped so
that the researcher could listen again and again to gain the deeper understanding and interpretation. Besides, the researcher also made use of observation and
artifacts collection or documents check. As lived experience in this study was categorized into understanding,
belief, action, feeling, and intention, the blueprint was based on those five categories. The following blueprint table 3.1 was aimed at making interview
questions as a guideline in conducting interview.
Construct 1 Category
Construct 2 Sample Questions
Lived experience
is the reflection
of meaningful
experience covering
understand ing, belief,
action, feeling,
and intention.
Understand- ing
Textbooks selection is a
process of selecting
certain textbooks
which is conducted
before a teacher
employs a textbook.
- What do you know about
textbooks selection? -
What criteria should a good textbook have?
- What does textbook selection
mean to you? -
Why should you, as a teacher, select textbooks?
- How should textbooks suit to
teachers, students, and administrators?
Belief -
Is it always a must to have textbooks to teach in class?
- How does the appropriate
textbooks selection contribute to the success of teaching learning
process?
- What language skills should the
textbooks expose most? Action
- Do you have autonomy to select
textbooks? -
What steps do you employ in selecting textbooks?
- What considerations underlie
your choice? -
Do you have any problem in practice?
Feeling -
What do you feel when you select textbooks?
- Have you ever felt that you
succeeded and failed in conducting textbooks selection?
Intention -
What do you intend to do in the future textbooks selection?
Table 3.1. Blueprint of Interview Questions
