Coaching effectiveness is a result of a coach getting the best out of the people and resources in their environment. For coaches, learning from experience is vital in a role that is a complex, dynamic and multifaceted process of balancing fun and winning where one cannot be sure if results will go according to plan. At the Olympic level, due to commercialization more money is being spent than ever before on developing more professional and effective training systems to maximize athletic performances. Medals won determine how a coach is evaluated and with more nations competition at a higher level, success is becoming even more competitive. More qualified and adaptable coaches are required to cope with the demands of international competition. The literature has been extensively examined based on the research question: to what extent is coaching success predicted by a coaches' ability to self-reflect on past experiences? The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that if coaches who are highly self-reflective and have successful athletic and coaching experiences would be more likely to have future coaching success than those who either were not self-reflective or had less success in the past. Coaching knowledge is acquired though experience and the process of learning and self-reflection is an activity that facilitates this process. This study showed that rowing coaching experience and rowing athletic experience are positive predictors of coaching success, albeit weakly so. While self-reflective activities are not predictors of coaching success, self-reflection is an activity that coaches engage in. This study also identified the challenges in measuring coaching success. But like any domain, deliberate practice, which is a known pathway to developing expertise, is an activity that contributes to the professionalization of sports coaching and its advancement as a profession. / Ph. D.

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A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Business Executive Coaching Wits Business School March 2015 / The extensive training that goes into developing engineering professionals is part of the price society pays for infrastructure development. Yet when it comes to developing young engineering managers, their education is often left to chance. Organisations rely on a combination of manager’s intuition and chance to recognise potential new managers and then they are expected to find their own way through the maze of policies, financial reporting, and stakeholder management politics after their appointment. This study was based in a State Owned Company where a group of new engineering managers were interviewed on their experiences as they moved into management in order to identify the challenges they experienced during the transition. The findings in the course of this research contribute to the understanding of the managerial competencies needed in a multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary engineering environment in order to guide new managers and the way in which coaching can contribute to their successful transition into engineering management. This study used a deductive approach to establish the transition challenges based on selected literature and compared the themes to the data from thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with 16 engineering professionals working in a State Owned Company engineering company. The role of new managers as talent trustees and containers of corporate memory is an essential part of skills retention strategy. This implies that dysfunctional behaviour at this level will affect future engineering skills retention and development. The cost of coaching should be offset by the risk of management failure when the new managers do not negotiate the transition challenges successfully. South African companies integrate coaching with the talent or business strategy and they use internal coaches to coach up-and-coming talent and graduates (Steenkamp, 2013). There is an urgent and important need to develop engineers into managers and therefore the assistance given to new managers would be an advantage not just in terms of the general management competencies but also the transition competencies needed in the developing countries, such as South Africa (Denton & Vloeberghs, 2003). The challenges of the transition are exacerbated by the heterogeneous nature of the business world where multiple cultures and generations complicate information exchange in the engineering labour environment. This research uses some of the insights gained from the international management competencies and applies the differences found in the South African context to identify transitionery management competencies for the developing world. The research goes on to determine how organisations and coaches can facilitate the transition of managers in South Africa.

Purpose - This thesis aims to explore how employee coaching leads to employee well-being and what features a digital platform for coaching should integrate to ensure employee well-being. This will be done by answering the following research questions; (1) How does employee coaching contribute to employee well-being? and (2) What features should be integrated in a digital platform for employee coaching to foster employee well-being? Method - The study is a single case study where a Swedish consultancy firm that utilises managerial coaching was investigated. An abductive research approach was chosen, and 19 interviews were conducted with employees at the case company and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Findings - The findings of the research include how the six explored components for employee well-being were influenced by employee coaching, which feature categories are crucial for the creation of a platform for coaching and what risks the features can help mitigate. Lastly a summary figure that illustrates the interrelations between digital features, risks the employee well-being components is presented. Theoretical contribution - This study adds to existing literature in three ways. First, it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of coaching and its connection to employee well-being. Second, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the correlation between specific features and its outcome on employee well-being. Third, risks associated with the digital platform for employee coaching fostering well-being are presented and how features can be utilised to mitigate or decrease those risks. Practical contribution - The study provides a foundation for the creation of a digital platform as an aid for the coaching process. Practical contributions include guidelines for managers on how to introduce such a tool in an organisation, the importance of individual adaptation and how to handle data sharing. Limitations of the study - The study's main limitation is that it is a single case study, this implies that the research is limited to the case company's individual thoughts and experiences, which in this case is limited to one year of coaching experience. / Syfte - Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur coachning av anställda kan bidra till anställdas välmående samt vilka features en digital plattform kan integrera för att säkerställa anställdas välmående. Detta genom att besvara följande forskningsfrågor; (1) Hur bidrar coachning av anställda till välmående? och (2) Vilka features bör en digital plattform för coachning av anställda ha för att främja välmående? Metod - Studien är en enskild fallstudie av ett svenskt konsultbolag som nyttjar managerial coaching. En abduktiv forskningsansats utsågs lämpad, studien bestod av 19 intervjuer med anställda på företaget och en tematisk analys nyttjades sedan för att analysera datan. Resultat - Resultatet inkluderar hur de sex komponenterna av anställdas välmående blir påverkade av coachning, vilka featurekategorier som är kritiska för skapandet av en digital plattform för coachning och risker features kan mildra. Teoretiskt bidrag - Studien bidrar till existerande litteratur på tre sätt. Först, bidrar det till en mer nyanserad förståelse av coachning och dess påverkan på anställdas välmående. Sedan bidrar det till en djupare förståelse för korrelationen mellan specifika features kategorier och dess påverkan på anställdas välmående. Slutligen, presenteras risker kopplade till en digital coaching plattform för anställdas välmående samt hur olika features kan nyttjas för att mildra dessa risker.  Praktiskt bidrag - Studien bidrar till en grund chefer kan nyttja inför skapandet av en digital coaching plattform för anställdas välmående. Det praktiska bidraget inkluderar riktlinjer för hur chefer ska introducera och integrera en sådan digital plattform i organisationen, vikten av individanpassning och hur data ska hanteras och delas. Studiens begränsningar - Den huvudsakliga begränsningen är att studien är en enskild fallstudie vilket begränsar den till fallföretagets specifika upplevelser och tankar, vilket är begränsat till ett års erfarenhet av coaching av anställda.

Background: Over the last decade, diabetes health coaching, also referred to as diabetes coaching, has emerged as a patient-centered intervention to assist individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in acquiring independence with self-management. The structure and delivery of such interventions have varied greatly while showing improvements in glycemic control. However, literature continues to show a gap around the patient experience of receiving diabetes coaching support. Objective: To explore the perceived experience of receiving telephone-based diabetes health coaching among community-based adults with T2DM within the Canadian context. Methods: A qualitative exploration with an interpretive descriptive design was carried out. Participants from the intervention group of a larger randomized controlled trial who had received a telephone-based diabetes coaching intervention over one year were invited to participate in a telephone interview with open-ended questioning. Findings: A total of 12 participants were interviewed and four major themes were identified. (1) Adapting to life with T2DM reflects how coaching helped individuals to integrate diabetes into their lives by addressing misconceptions, providing knowledge, encouraging awareness, and easing transition onto insulin. (2) Heightened mindfulness of diabetes-related wellness captured the greater attention participants’ gave to their overall well-being and self-management behaviours. (3) Behaviour change guided by the participant highlights the differences in participants’ motivation, readiness to make changes, external factors that influenced their ability to make self-management behaviour changes. (4) Lastly, valuing a supportive relationship illustrates that participants felt the unique coach-client relationship was reliable, holistic, non-judgmental, and encouraging. Conclusion: Overall, participants found diabetes coaching to be positive and highlighted the various ways it was able to support their ability to more effectively self-manage their diabetes. / Thesis / Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate K-12 teachers' perceptions of instructional coaching. Specifically, this researcher assessed the perception of instructional coaching as a whole, support for hiring practices for instructional coaches, the value of instructional coaching for improving teaching practices, the value of instructional coaching for improving student achievement, and the perception of instructional coaches being in supervisory role. Participants in this study were located in three different school systems in Northeast Tennessee. All data were collected through an online survey distributed to 848 teachers resulting in a 62% return rate with 536 participant responses. Research reinforced the view that more research needs to be conducted to determine the effectiveness of instructional coaching. The data from 5 survey questions measured on a 4-point Likert-type scale were analyzed using one-sample t tests. Results indicated that teachers differ on their perception of instructional coaching based on grade level and their years of experience. No group had a statistically significant positive support for instructional coaching.

A quasi-experimental multiple time series design was used to analyze and compare the impact of two types of instructional coaching, face-to-face and virtual covert audio provided with Bluetooth technology, on teacher transfer of knowledge learned in professional development into classroom practice. Teacher transfer across baseline, intervention, and maintenance phases was analyzed. The study was conducted at a public elementary school in a Florida suburban school district with approximately 750 students. Twelve teachers were randomly selected from teachers who volunteered to attend professional development. Six teachers (one from each grade level K-5) in the treatment group received virtual covert audio coaching. Six teachers (one from each grade level K-5) in the control group received face-to-face coaching. Professional development was on RallyCoach™, a Kagan cooperative learning structure, which allows students to interact and practice procedural learning such as calculating math algorithms, defending a point of view, or editing writing. This structure was chosen to provide teachers with an instructional tool to teach and provide students practice for the speaking and listening strand of the Common Core State Standards. RallyCoach™ was also chosen to increase student engagement. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and visual analysis methods. Both the control and treatment groups increased the mean (level) percentages of RallyCoachTM components implemented across time from baseline to intervention and from intervention to maintenance. There was an increasing trend line for implementation of RallyCoachTM iv components across phases for both study groups. The decreasing standard deviation across phases represented a decreasing variability of data and can be considered to show a treatment affect for both types of coaching. Teachers who received both types of coaching continued increased implementation into the maintenance phase when the coaching intervention was removed. Data analysis revealed an increasing percentage of student pairs providing positive student-to-student interaction with an increasing trend line and a decreasing standard deviation (reduced variability) across time over phases. Face-to-face and virtual coaching had a positive impact on student-to-student positive interaction.

This research contributes to current understandings of how the process of learning unfurls temporally during coaching conversations. This experience has been obtained through first-hand lived experience, in particular, my active participation as a coachee in a series of one-to-one coaching conversations with two professional coaches. To assist in developing and enriching these understandings further I have crafted a research design with a two-stage process. And a hybrid methodology drawn from Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and Dialogical Methods. This approach is beneficial in enabling the complexity of self-other relationships that unfold within coaching conversations to be fully articulated. I have chosen to adopt autoethnography as a research method in stage one of this research, and interviews in stage two, respectively. Autoethnography enables a complex exploration of first-hand lived experience, providing a forum in which reflexive dialogues between self and other can emerge. Thus, allowing multiple perspectives to be heard. In stage two I have interviewed 6 professional coaches, facilitating an additional dialogue to unfold between self and others, enriching this research. Critically, within this research, the self is described as malleable and non-identical with itself, where on encountering others in external and inner dialogues it experiences challenges and struggles with the unknown and unfamiliar. Significantly, through this experience the self is transformed. Finally, this process can be understood as artistic, since this research describes an aesthetic metaphor informed by Bakhtin and Gell, in which coach and coachee - described as the recipient are actively engaged in emotionally crafting and shaping the other.

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Coaching education programs, both non-sport specific and sport specific, have been developed by a number of sponsoring agencies. The purpose of these coaching education programs is to develop coaching competencies leading to safe programs that foster skill development, positive social-emotional development, and enjoyment. Little research has been done to support these claims. The purpose of this study was to (1) analyze the content of one non-sport specific and one sport specific (soccer) coaching education program, (2) assess novice coaches' knowledge base and specific coaching behaviors prior to participating in a coaching education program, (3) assess novice coaches' knowledge base and specific coaching behaviors after participating in a coaching education program, and (4) contrast the differences that exist between generic and sport specific coaching education programs to determine if the coaching education programs actually influence novice youth soccer coaches to change their behaviors and does this change reflect the content that was delivered in the course they took part in. Eight novice youth soccer coaches of boys and girls aged 6-12 were assigned to one of two coaching education groups. A descriptive profile of each coach was established using videotape analysis, field notes, and interviews. The Instructional Observation System for Analyzing Coaching Performance (IOSACP) was utilized to assess pre and post coaching education practice behaviors. Results were analyzed following a pretest-posttest design. Pre-intervention analysis demonstrated the novice soccer coaches as a group possessed little soccer content knowledge, had limited pedagogical content knowledge, and had little understanding of what ought to be done in a youth soccer context. The non-sport specific coaching education course was delivered as designed and was presented in a three hour lecture/discussion format. This course provided sound philosophical and structural coaching information but no content knowledge and little pedagogical information. The content presented did not influence the participants to change their practice behavior. The five hour sport specific coaching education course, delivered in both a lecture and field based format was not delivered as designed. It provided more specific soccer content knowledge through a field based component that tied the content and the philosophy of coaching youth soccer together. This was deemed sound and this combination led to this group of coaches to change their practice structure and delivery. This change was based on the philosophy and soccer coaching content delivered in the course. The coaches’ pedagogical skills did change slightly but the changes cannot be attributed to the pedagogical content delivered in this course. The major difference between these two courses was the field based content knowledge component that was presented in the sport specific course. This component had a direct impact on the coaches that participated in the sport specific coaching education course as they completely changed the structure for conducting a youth soccer practice. This change represented the content delivered in the coaching education program. / Ed. D.