Developing a Coaching-specific Typology of Questions and questioning ...

Within the framework of the project “Questioning Sequences in Coaching” (Graf et al. 2021), a coaching-specific typology of questions was developed in collaboration between linguists and psychologists using authentic coaching data. In this talk, we present the genesis as well as the final product of this typology.

Starting from a linguistic perspective, a first conceptualization regarding functions and possible coaching-specific question types was initially based on findings or "sensitizing concepts" (Blumer 1969) from research on psychotherapy using Conversation Analysis or Gesprächsanalyse (Mack et al. 2016; Spranz-Fogasy 2020) as well as (linguistic) coaching research (Graf 2019; Deplazes et al. 2018). The applicability of these concepts was then assessed using an existing corpus of coaching interactions (Graf 2015; 2019); this inductive process resulted in a first draft of a typology of questions in coaching. With the linguists drawing on transdisciplinary insights for guidance, this first draft was then further adapted and abstracted in an iterative process based on a new data corpus (Graf et al. 2021). The degree of detailedness vs. abstraction was readjusted in close exchange between psychology and linguistics until an interdisciplinary suitable category system emerged. The typology was then collaboratively transformed into a coding manual (Graf et al. in prep.), which describes the categories and illustrates them with examples, thereby enabling independent coding of questions in coaching. We end our talk by presenting the thus-generated typology of questions, composed of sixteen question types, and by considering the next step: developing a typology of questions sequences in coaching.