Active listening
Active listening is a way of listening that shows the speaker they are understood and invites them to say more: full attention, then paraphrasing, reflecting feelings, summarizing and asking open follow-up questions. In research interviews it is the skill that turns short answers into accounts.
How it works
An active listener focuses on the speaker rather than on their own next question, and signals attention with short acknowledgments and silence that leaves room to continue. They paraphrase ("So the problem started when the bill changed?") to check understanding, name the emotion they hear, and summarize before moving on.
In an interview, these techniques do two jobs: they build the trust that makes people disclose more, and they catch misunderstandings before they reach the data. The moderator stays neutral while doing it, reflecting what was said without agreeing, judging or leading the participant toward an answer. Clinical and management research treats it as a trainable skill.
A worked example
A bank researcher asks why a customer closed a savings account and hears "rates". Instead of moving on, she reflects: "Rates weren't what you expected?" The customer adds that the rate dropped after 6 months without notice. Across 20 interviews, this follow-up turns 12 answers of "rates" into 9 accounts of the same unannounced change.
Related
Automate this in Pulse
A team training its own interviewers in active listening can use Pulse transcripts as practice material, drafting the paraphrase or summary they would have offered after each answer and checking it against what the participant said next.