45 A phenomenology research is to accommodate this research, since its aim is to
gather a better understanding of the nature and quality of phenomena as they present themselves Willig, 2008, p.56. Phenomenology research focuses on lived
experience which looks at the individual’s or person’s experiences of phenomena. Phenomenology, as one of the research methods of interpretive research, intends to
gain a deeper understanding of the nature of meaning of our everyday experiences Van Manen, 1990. It describes the meaning for several individuals of their lived
experiences of a concept or phenomena.
B. Research Design
In this research, I attempted to design the study as a means to tell and reveal problem of human life. There were four aspects covered in this research design;
specified goal, context, process, and components as shown in figure below.
Figure 3.1. Research Design
Research Identity
Title: ELS Students’ Lived Experience of
Project-Based Learning
Specified goal
Describing and interpreting the
ELS Students’ Lived experience
of Project-Based Learning
Context
1. Setting: The Graduate Program of English Language Studies ELS, Sanata Dharma
University, Yogyakarta 2. Time: November 2016-Februari 2017
Procedures
1. Determine the source of text
2. Collect significant information
from the initial interview 3.
Arrange some pointers for interview
4. Conduct the interviews
5. Describe the text
6. Interpret the text
Source Nature of texts
1. The source of the texts: three
illuminating graduate students
2. The nature of the texts: a narrative
46
1. Specified Goal
The focus of this research was to discover the meaning of ELS Students’ Lived Experience of Project-Based Learning. In other words, this research focused on the
student s’ experience when they learned using project-based approach. Additionally,
this research was also intended to understand the shared stories from the participants’ perspectives about their experience of project-based learning and the
assigned meanings from it.
2. Context
This research was conducted in The Graduate Program in English Language Studies ELS, Sanata Dharma University. There were three participants in this
study. They were ELS students bacth of 2015. They had passed three semesters in the English Language Studies Graduate Program of Sanata Dharma University and
experienced various activities related to project-based learning throughout the semesters. Additionally, this research was conducted in November 2016 until the
end of February 2017. In the mean time, I conducted intial interview and in-depth interviews to gather the data for this research.
3. Procedures
There were several steps in conducting this research, namely, determining the source of the text, arranging pointers for the interviews, conducting initial interview
and in-depth interviews. Describing and interpreting the texts were the following steps. Since this research aimed at exploring the meaning of ELS students’ lived
experience of project-based learning, the steps in conducting the research were determining the source of the texts, conducting an initial interview, arranging some
47 pointers for the interviews, conducting in-depth interviews, and describing and
interpreting the texts, as depicted in figure 3.2.
Figure 3.2. Research Procedures
There were three illuminating participants in this study who have experienced the phenomenon. Not only that, they all were willing to share their
experience.As the first stage, conducting an initial interview enabled the researcher to create a good atmosphere with the participants. Therefore, this allowed the
Goal: Describing and interpreting
ELS Students’ Lived Experience of Project- Based Learning
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
