Enhancing Researcher Reflexivity About the Influence of Leading Questions in Interviews

Interviewing is the most frequently used qualitative research method for gathering data. Although interviews vary across different epistemological perspectives, questions are central to all interviewing genres. This article focuses on the potential for the wording of interview questions to lead and unduly influence, or bias, the interviewee’s responses. This underacknowledged phenomenon affects the trustworthiness of findings and has implications for knowledge claims made by researchers, particularly in research that aims to elicit interviewees’ subjective experience. We highlight the problem of the influence of interview questions on data; provide a typology of how interview questions can lead responses; and present a method, the “cleanness rating,” that facilitates reflexivity by enabling researchers to review and assess the influence of their interview questions. This clarifies the researcher’s role in the production of interview data and contributes to methodological transparency.