Impact of Coaching at Enhancing Goal Attainment - Research Paper Example

Impact of coaching at enhancing goal attainment Key words: professional coaching, peer coaching, standard tutorial, individual/group session Abstract The objective of this research is to investigate the impact of peer and professional coaching at enhancing goal attainment as well as their significance in comparison to standard tutorial. It has been argued that coaching fundamentally improves performance, thereby, making it a widely utilized tool for enhancing and facilitating performance in contemporary workplace learning. However, there are different types of coaching employed in a range of organization setting to foster career development, cultural change, professionalism and creating awareness for complex and dynamic systems. To evaluate the validity of these statements, focus shall be on 60 third year volunteer students study involving 30 males and 30 females randomly registered to undertake one of six conditions. Other four specialized coaches including two males and females were also registered for the study. Additional four third year psychology students comprising of two males and females engaged in a couching module and who had previously received extra GROW (Goal, reality, Options, Way forward) model of coaching were also selected. Four other skilled faculty employees were also chosen to run the standard tutorials. The research study utilized an independent group based on a 3 by 2 factorial ANOVA to examine the implications and influence on goal attainment of the three different coaching techniques in different settings. In general, the study results indicate predictions that group focused coaching is greatly effective at enhancing achievement of goals compared to individual focused coaching. However, professional coaching technique registers very high goal attainment outcomes for individual focused coaching compared to group coaching. Introduction Coaching in general significantly aids in enhancing performance as well as accomplishment of goals. It is therefore widely utilized in education, at the workplace and in teaching in the contemporary world. Based on the three coaching methods outlined in this paper including peer coaching, professional coaching and standard tutorial, each has a different way of fulfilling goal attainment in different settings. Peer coaching is considered to be very effective and helpful towards goal attainment since it involves an informal and cooperative approach whereby, all members coach each other at the same time getting to learn the art of sharing knowledge, practices, experiences, and skills. Individuals in peer coaching therefore get to conquer relationship concerns and also promote their strengths or interests. It is strongly helpful in inspirational training, life skills and education, and organizational change since it focuses more on developing effective communication, interaction, leadership and conflict resolution skills. As such, it is majorly used in education, life coaching, and organizational development settings (Zwart et al., 2007). However, it is also important to note that due to the scope of peer coaching, it entails high costs in most of its programs. Professional coaching is also considered to significantly contribute to goal attainment and professional growth. According to Neuman and Linda (2009), professional coaching is highly fundamental in assisting individuals and groups in setting and accomplishing goals. This is because professional coaching increases self-confidence and awareness, effective decision making, develops productivity, enhances professionalism and trains on how to tackle challenges. Furthermore, it has been revealed that professional coaching has the highest percentage of return on investment when utilized in organizational settings since it enhances staff loyalty, high-performance skills, better time management, and satisfaction levels (Glasgow et al., 2009). It is highly effective in organizational development and education settings. The weakness of professional coaching is that it is costly, time consuming, and mainly targets a focused group as opposed to an all-inclusive training strategy. Lastly, standard tutorial also has its own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to influencing goal attainment. Standard tutorials contribute to shaping goal attainment based on the fact that it transfers the required knowledge and skills through a learning process. As a result, individuals or groups engaged in tutorials acquire more interactive and specific information and knowledge, thus, ensuring comprehensive understanding of the subject under training. Tutorials are majorly utilized in educational settings. However, one of the main weakness of tutorials is due to the requirement of active participation, meaning, without active participation those under training may not realize their goals (Dolmans and Schmidt, 2006). Aims There are substantial concerns by researchers that peer and professional coaching equally influence higher levels of goal attainment compared to standard tutorials. This is primarily based on the predictions founded on the individualized efforts placed in individual settings and the possibilities of aligning coaching goals towards individual goals (Spence and Grant, 2005). The aim of this research is hence to establish the effectiveness of how peer and professional coaching helps in influencing goal achievement in comparison to standard tutorial. This shall be evaluated based on the research question on whether individual or group based coaching equally help to improve goal attainment. To effectively evaluate how peer and professional coaching helps in influencing goal achievement in comparison to standard control, evidence based research with empirical evidences shall be evaluated. Essentially, it is based upon the 3x2 factorial ANOVA to examine the implications and influence on goal attainment of the three different coaching techniques in different settings for both individual and group based coaching. Method This research’s methodology predominantly used a 3x2 factorial ANOVA to examine the implications and influence on goal attainment of peer, professional and standard tutorial coaching techniques in different settings. Based on the study methodology, 60 third year volunteer students including 30 males and 30 females were randomly registered to undertake one of the six conditions. Other four specialized coaches including two males and females were also registered for the study with one of the coaches commanding high experience in using GROW model of coaching. Additional four third year psychology students comprising of two males and females engaged in a couching module and who had previously received extra GROW (Goal, reality, Options, Way forward) model of coaching were also selected. Four other skilled faculty employees were also chosen to run the standard tutorials. Research ethics issues were as well put into consideration since all participants were briefed on their roles in the research. The approach the research took involved the creation of a two coaching session on a weekly basis, with each session lasting for a period of 90 minutes. Each group had two couches and four participants in the coaching conditions, while for the tutorial conditions there were two tutors. On the other hand, the approach taken by the individual based section involved the creation of a either one coach or tutor on a weekly basis, with each session lasting for a period of 60 minutes depending on the coaching conditions. All the research participants took part in all the sessions from the beginning to the end for a period of 10 weeks. During this 10 weeks period, they all focused on setting and working towards the attainment of a specific goal in relation to their study. The evaluations on their results with respect to their set goals were done two weeks after the study. The criteria for measuring goal attainment utilized the range of 0-100% with reference to a scale score of 1 to 5 as indicated; 0-20% represents 1, 21-40% represents 2, 41-60% represents 3, 61-80% represents 4, and 81-100% represents 5. This typically means that a scale score value of 5 represents the highest score rating while a score scale value of 1 represented the lowest score rating. To a large extent, the research’s independent variables pertained peer and professional coaching, tutorials, and the group or individualized sessions. On the other hand, the dependent variable pertained to the outcome on goal success. After the research was concluded, collection of data on the outcomes was conducted and analyzed through the 3x2 factorial ANOVA. Fundamentally, this was employed to compute statistical data in form of generative descriptive statistics encompassing mean scores and standard deviation aimed at analyzing the differences between the coaching conditions as well as the group or individual focused training. Results Descriptive statistics Table 1 Averages, aggregated Mean and Standard Deviation (SD) of student goal achievement with respect to type of session against type of coaching The Table above computed from the research results clearly reveals how professional coaching has a higher goal accomplishment levels compared to peer coaching and standard tutorial. For the three different coaching techniques, professional coaching provides the best outcome followed by peer coaching, with standard tutorial coaching indicating as the poorest outcome. It is also vivid enough to note that group coaching sessions registered better results compared to individual coaching sessions. All these are based on mean results as indicated from the table. The results and nature of coaching session on goal attainment Based on the 3x2 factorial ANOVA used for the three different techniques of coaching analyzed from two coaching sessions, individualized and group sessions, the results are not consistent with levene’s test. As a result, there was substantial assumption of variances uniformity. Accordingly, the F ratio was utilized to produced the type of coaching outcomes based on the formula (F (2,54) =21. 55, p. 001; peer and tutorial coaching, p=. 001. Positive outcomes were also revealed from group session coaching (F (2,27) =4. 24, p=. 025, ηρ2 =. 24). Comparability based on Tukey post hoc illustrated fairly large dissimilarity between tutorial and professional coaching as well as peer and tutorial coaching depicted by (p=. 046), and (p=0. 046) respectively. (p=1) for professional and peer group session coaching reveals no significant differences between the two on goal attainment. Discussions The results indicate that there is a significant influence of professional and peer coaching techniques on goal attainment compared to standard control. This is based on the ANOVA test results as shown in the table, the graphical analysis, and from the analysis provided under coaching sessions on goal attainment. In particular, the results points out the standard deviation (DV) for professional coaching to stand at 4.5, peer coaching stands at 4.1, and standard tutorial stands at 3.2. This essentially ascertains the fact that goal attainment is more realized though professional and peer coaching compared to standard tutorial. On training sessions, individual and groups, there are fairly large differences. Professional coaching for individual sessions registered higher results compared to group sessions. As opposed to professional coaching, in Peer coaching, group sessions registered higher results compared to individual sessions. Standard tutorial just like peer coaching similarly registers better results for group sessions as opposed to individual sessions. However, the standard deviation (SD) mean reveals that group based coaching is more effective at influencing goal attainment compared to individual coaching. As such, these results are positively in line with the research question following the clear results showing both group and individual sessions equally influencing goal attainment. Furthermore, this is emphasized by the minimal variation differences from the results. Based on the findings from this study, it can largely be argued that group coaching fosters better outcomes in goal attainment as opposed to individual coaching. According to the results, group coaching tends to register more results because it utilizes collaborative result-oriented, solution-focused, and systematic process techniques within a shared environment thus encouraging individual goal attainment attitude. On the other hand, individual focused coaching registers slightly lowered goal attainment outcome because one tend to remain in his/her cognitive, behavioral, and solution-focused mindset. Spence and Grant (2005) as well notes the same from their findings in “individual and group life coaching” randomized research study. Also, this might be because group coaching permits individuals to share time with one another including their coach. Individuals in group coaching can interact with one another to get deeper understanding of concepts and also have a favourable environment for sharing their viewpoints, knowledge, challenges, and opportunities with one another. Individual coaching on the contrary takes one-on-one and personalized approach thereby assisting most efficiently in individual mentorships. This is perhaps the reason professional coaching registered high goal attainment outcome for individual focused coaching. However, it is important to note that the average variation results from the study gives very little difference between group and individual focused coaching. Further researches should thus be conducted to provide more conclusive results. The results also shows professional coaching to be highly significant in influencing goal attainment for individual coaching (SD=4.8) in contrast to group coaching (SD=4.2). Based on the SD results, this might be because professional coaching mainly focuses on addressing specific needs, skills, or expertise. In light of this, it can largely be concluded that coaching significantly increases the quality of life for individuals by fostering goal attainment attitude, professional growth, and enhancing productivity. Furthermore, Spence and Grant (2005) emphasizes that this is because coaching leads to increased goal striving, satisfaction with life, positive relations with others, personal growth, self-acceptance, and hope. Bibliography Dolmans, Diana HJM, and Henk G. Schmidt. "What do we know about cognitive and motivational effects of small group tutorials in problem-based learning?." Advances in Health Sciences Education 11.4 (2006): 321-336. Glasgow, Mary Ellen Smith, et al. "The benefits of a leadership program and executive coaching for new nursing academic administrators: one colleges experience." Journal of Professional Nursing 25.4 (2009): 204-210. Gordon B. Spence., and Anthony M. Grant. "Individual and Group Life Coaching: Initial Findings from a Randomised Controlled Trial." Evidence-Based Coaching. 12. (2005): 143-157. Neuman, Susan B., and Linda Cunningham. "The impact of professional development and coaching on early language and literacy instructional practices." American educational research journal 46.2 (2009): 532-566. Zwart, R., Wubbels T., Bergen, T.C.M., and Bolhuis, S. "Experienced teacher learning within the context of reciprocal peer coaching. " Teachers and Teaching. 13 (2): (2007): 165-187. Read More