Cleaning up research interviews

Interviews are a popular and frequently used research method within a range of social sciences research studies. The ability to delve deeply into participants' thoughts, emotions and experiences appeals to researchers studying phenomena across a range of different contexts. However, the questions asked during interviews may inadvertently and unconsciously lead participants to respond in a certain way - through the words used or the manner in which the questions are asked. 

While researchers are advised not to ask leading questions, Lawley and Small contend that interviewers can lack awareness of how their values, beliefs and personal constructs may impact on covertly influencing the responses of participants. The authenticity of the data may not accurately capture the essence of phenomena investigated and in turn, compromise the findings and conclusions of the study.

Clean language questioning

In a bid to counter the inferences of researchers' questions and minimise interviewers values, beliefs and interpretations ‘dirtying’ the interviews, the Clean Language questioning model was developed by David Groves (1950-2008), a New Zealand based psychotherapist who specialised in working with victims of trauma. Groves observed how ‘many clients naturally described their symptoms in metaphor and found that when he enquired about these using their exact words, their perception of the trauma began to change’ (Lawley and Tomkins, 2000: p. xiii). This observation led to the development of a study of how metaphors impact on conceptualisation of experiences and a set of questions; subsequently refined and codified by Lawley and Tomkins (2000), and give rise to what is known today as the Clean Language model (Lawley and Tomkins, 2000; Sullivan and Rees, 2008).

Although the Clean Language model has its origins in David Grove’s work with victims of trauma in the field of psychotherapy it has since evolved for use across a variety of different situations:

• as a personal and professional development tool within coaching contexts (Way, 2013),
• a facilitation method for working with groups (Walker, 2014), and more recently,
• as a social science re-search method (Tosey, 2011; Lawley and Small, 2018).

Central to the use of the Clean Language model is a set of questions and a questioning approach aimed at giving participants the opportunity and freedom to explore their issues in their own way, and avoiding the researcher imposing their metaphors, assumptions or paradigms. 

My use of clean language

The research interviews I completed as part of my doctoral studies utilised the Clean Language model to explore how metaphors referred to by academics influenced their narratives of teaching.

Evaluation of the model via post-evaluation questionnaires and focus group suggest participants positively welcome the new and novel approach to completing the research interviews and style of questioning by the interviewer; thus advocating the potential to fur-ther promoting and utilising the use of the Clean Language model within social science phenomenological studies.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss the practical application and potential value of the Clean Language model in your own research.