Questions are essential in helping professions. This international and interdisciplinary research project analyzes questioning practices in systemic solution-oriented, work-related (business) coaching. Coaching builds on the interaction between coach and client, addresses clients’ work-related problems and aims to facilitate clients’ change. Theoretical models in psychology describe change via specific developmental phases clients pass through. Yet, these are not observable. What can be observed and linguistically analyzed is the sequentially organized coaching interaction, i.e., the coaching conversation and its development across the entire coaching process. Here, the sequential relations between turns ensure the transformation of clients’ experience and the generation of new knowledge thereby contributing to the process of change across and beyond successful coaching interactions.

Although the importance of coaching has increased significantly in the western world, its academic foundation is still underdeveloped, especially in the context of the coaching process research. The analysis of questioning sequences as an essential change-inducing intervention represents a principal research gap: In contrast to coaching practice literature, where questions are presented as central and powerful tools (though depicted in a monological, decontextualized form using invented examples and with firmly attributed functions and usage indications), to date there is hardly any empirical research on questions in coaching.

Research questions and goals

This research project investigates, which kinds of questioning sequences – i.e., coaches’ questions, clients’ responses, and coaches’ follow-up turns – occur across a coaching process. What are their coaching-specific functions? How frequent are the various types of questioning sequences throughout the different phases of coaching, and how can we understand the relationship between their frequency and their local and global effectiveness? The project aims to develop a coaching-specific typology of questioning sequences and to investigate their local and global change potentials. A special focus is on the third position of the questioning sequence, i.e., coaches’ reactions to clients’ responses, in relation to the systemic solution-oriented coaching agenda as well as the relationship of the third position with the global effectiveness, defined as goal attainment.