Active Listening in Interviews

Stephen LouwKMUTT PhD programme

Interviews in Qualitative Research

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• Structured vs unstructured vs semi-structured• To elicit rich data through extended responses• Issues arising for the novice researcher:

• Covering the required ground• Reacting to unexpected responses• Following the interviewee’s lead• Getting sidetracked

Active listening

• Intended to make the speaker feel well listened to, encourage reflection, personal insight and extended responses by:• Responding empathically• Reflecting the speaker’s message

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‘Open’ functions in active listening

• Opening‘Alright, on a completely different note, how would you describe a good teacher?’

• Probing‘Let’s talk more about the trainee, what do you think the trainee gets from the feedback session?’

• Paraphrasing‘So sometimes during the feedback you say ‘how do you think it went’ and one of them may say ‘I think it was terrible’. Do you use that as a lead in for what comes next?’

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‘Focusing’ functions in active listening

• Evaluating‘I’m interested in this concept of good feedback. Can you define what bad feedback is?’

• Clarifying‘And is that when you start your feedback?’

• Repeating‘Be ‘self-critical’?’

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Functions in active listening• Opening

Alright, on a completely different note…

• ProbingLet’s talk more about …

• ParaphrasingSo let me check I have this right then…

• EvaluatingIt sounds like…

• ClarifyingAre you saying…?

• Repeating<keyword>?

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Try it out

1. Alright and by always starting with the good things, why do you do that?

2. Okay, do you go through the good points chronologically?

3. Oh so you feel it’s not worth bringing that kind of thing up?

1. Probe 2. Clarify 3. Paraphrase

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Purpose of this paper

• To what extent did I use active listening?• How useful is active listening in eliciting long

responses in semi-structured interviews?• What problems were there in trying to

implement the active listening approach?

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Context

4 interviews with teacher trainers:– Commercial TESOL training centre in Bangkok– Eliciting beliefs about teaching, training and

teaching practice

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Analysis of interviews

Interviewer’s Initiation 1

Response 1

Interviewer’s initiation 2

Response

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Analysing the interviewer’s intention

Response 1

Initiation

Open – a new topicProbe – the same topicEvaluate – the same topic with new perspectiveParaphrase – the same subtopic, rewordedClarify – a question about the same subtopic Repeat – an echo of a word or phrase

This shows how I used their reply to elicit further responses.

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Analysing the interviewee’s interpretation

Response 1

Initiation

Response 2

Open – new content expectedProbe – additional content expectedEvaluate – change in perspective expectedParaphrase – additional content on subtopic expectedClarify – rewording requiredRepeat – no new content expected

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This analysis shows how the initiations were interpreted.

Proportion of Functions

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Function Intention Interpretationn Proportion n Proportion

Opening 44 24% 43 24%

Probing 69 38% 60 32%

Paraphrasing 33 18% 29 16%

Evaluating 8 4% 5 3%

Clarifying 27 15% 36 20%

Repeating 1 0.5% 9 5%

76% of initiations followed from the interviewee’s turns (i.e. Involved active listening).

Response length by function

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Function Intention Interpretation wordsx̄� SD SD/x̄� wordsx̄� SD SD/x̄�

Opening 111 117.6 1.06 104 109.1 1.05

Probing 94 56.3 0.59 109 67.8 0.62

Paraphrasing 37 39.5 1.05 60 34.2 0.57

Evaluating 97 19.4 0.2 77 44.7 0.58

Clarifying 36 37.2 1.03 32 35.9 1.11

Repeating 93 - 2 1.1 0.67

Large mismatch between intention and interpretation for paraphrasing

Point biserial correlation

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rpb P (two tailed)

where intention and interpretation functions match

+0.14 0.055179

where functions were intended as open* +0.02 0.818353

where functions were interpreted as open* +0.46 <.0001

*Open functions: Openings, probing and paraphrasing

http://faculty.vassar.edu/lowry/pbcorr.html

Length of response correlates to interviewee’s interpretation of initiations

Compare the length of responses with:

Mismatches between Interpretation and Intention

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Intention mismatches

Open 1 (2.7%) interpreted as a probe.

Probe 13 (18.8%) interpreted as clarify (7), paraphrase (5), evaluation (1)

Paraphrase 14 (42.4%) interpreted as repeat (6), clarify (8)

Evaluate 4 (50%) interpreted as paraphrase (2), probe (1) , clarify (1)

Clarify 7 (25.9%) interpreted as probe (1), repeat (3) , paraphrase (3)

Repeat 1 (100%) interpreted as a probe

A large proportion of paraphrase function mismatch

Clarify interpreted as paraphrase

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I Is it normally the case that they do have their [own] ideas?S Yeah and sometimes um they’re ve-, students can be stubborn so they might not think anything was amiss or they feel unusually down when they should be feeling more positive about way things.

Paraphrase interpreted as clarify

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I Alright, so basically you let them give their overall feelings first, then you go through

the positive things, if there are joint things together, then separately, and then

stuff that they need to think about afterwards.S Yeah.

Paraphrasing signals

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• ‘Let me see. You’re saying that it’s because you’re serious that they don’t participate in any great detail’ (Edge, 2005, 61).

• ‘Alright, so you’ve got a few minutes at the beginning of the lesson where they’re alone talking to each other’ (interpreted as ‘clarify’).

Paraphrasing signals

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• If I’ve understood you properly, then...• Let me see if I understand you. You’re

saying that ...• Just let me check that I’m with you. So

you mean that...

From Edge, J. (2002) Continuing Cooperative Development. University of Michigan Press.

Conclusion

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• Openings, probes and paraphrases are useful for eliciting long responses.

• Clarifying, repeating and evaluating create focus.

• The interviewee’s interpretation of the initiation is important for consistently long responses.

• Clear signals help interviewee’s recognise function of an initiation.

Purpose of this paper

• To what extent did I use active listening?• How useful is active listening in eliciting long

responses in semi-structured interviews?• What problems were there in trying to

implement an active listening approach?

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Q&A

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