The cooperative coaching client: Clients’ responding activities to wh-questions for solution generation in coaching
Melanie Fleischhacker et al.
Abstract
While solution generation and question-answer sequences are key to change in coaching, little is known about the role of questions with a solution-oriented agenda. Even less research exists on clients’ (cooperative) responding activities. To breach this gap, we used Conversation Analysis to investigate responses to wh-questions for solution generation with a special focus on the continuum of (dis-)aligning and (dis-)affiliating responses and the degrees of clients’ (un-)cooperativeness. The sequential analysis yielded five response categories: “no(n) answer,” “repair initiation,” “not answering and refocusing,” “answering” and “extended answering.” While the response possibility space includes a range of (un-)cooperative reactions, clients display an overall willingness to answer questions with a solution-generating function: “answering” and “extended answering” make up 68.9% of responses. Additionally, in-depth analyses revealed further cooperative behaviors. Apart from their interactional cooperativeness, this suggests an interaction-type specific readiness of coaching clients to participate in their own change process, that is, an institutional cooperativeness.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.