Expansion, reduction, or both?

Abstract This paper discusses opportunities and challenges of a mixed-methods research model building on linguistic and psychological methods, to document, analyze and evaluate questioning sequences as agents of effectiveness in business coaching. It details the disciplinary needs of expansion and reduction in the context of the development of a typology of questions and question sequences as part of the interdisciplinary project Questioning Sequences in Coaching. The aim is to illustrate how negotiating and integrating qualitative linguistic needs, resulting from a descriptive-phenomenological approach, and quantitative psychological needs, resulting from a theory-guided approach, can be productive for bringing together interaction and effectiveness in the context of (appropriate) responsiveness. Alongside the focus on integrating qualitative linguistic and quantitative psychological research, the paper exemplifies the added value for linguistic research of combining them in the context of a comparative case study on the longitudinal development of questions generating solutions.