Background Intended outcomes The challenge What we did What happened Analysis and evaluation methods Evidence gathered Ambassadors’ thoughts and experiences of coaching Ambassadors’ evaluation of the ideas generated Ambassadors’ perceptions of the mini project Ambassadors’ perceptions of using technology to support coaching in education Ambassadors’ perceptions of how coaching can best support learning and teaching practice Summary

Background

The coaching ambassador initiative was created as a result of the success that the sports business management team had had with using coaching with their students. There had been a number of second year students who had engaged with the coaching process and applied it not only within the module wait been introduced, but also with peers on issues they have encountered in other modules. One of these students took part in a presentation at the PC3 team gave at Exeter in 2011, for the Students as Change Agents in a Digital Age. This was met with such interest the team decided it would be valuable to further explore student views on coaching and the technology they used to support it.

 

To this end the team devised a mini project for students to undertake, looking at how they could use their experiences of coaching to promote the benefits to other students. The aims of this project were to:

 

• Gather evidence on the students’ experience of coaching
• To find out the students perceptions on the role of technology to support coaching, and in particular which technologies they felt were more suitable.
• Identify a number of ways that the benefits of coaching could be introduced and promoted to students

 

The mini project aimed to pay up to six students to engage with this mini project over a period of 5 months. As the role required some experience of coaching the recruitment process target 3rd year Sports Business Management students early in September 2011. A short presentation was given to interested students and the process of recruitment explained. A job description and information sheet on what they need to have in place was provided to interested applicants. Working through the universities job shop, students were required to complete an online application form via survey monkey, and then attend a 20 min interview, either via Skype or face-to-face depending on their requirements.

Eight students applied and after some deliberation, and advice from the JISC team all were employed. We took on extra students in case some were unable to continue with the project for any reason. This proved to be a valuable move, as two students had to disengage form the project for personal reasons.

 

Intended outcomes

The main purpose of this activity was to involve students as coaching ambassadors who would focus on how to promote coaching across their course and across the university. It was intended that this process would generate a number of ideas which had not be considered by the PC3 team, with a view to implementing and evaluating at least one of these. There was also the potential to capture individual ambassadors’ perceptions and experiences of coaching to get a clearer understanding of how this process had benefited them, or not.

 

As we wanted to encourage the students to think as broadly as possible and draw on their own experiences, the intended outcomes were kept fairly open and loose. After the ambassadors had registered with the university Job Shop, and initial brief was given and the process of data capture negotiated with them. At this stage all the team was looking for were some student generated ideas and an outline plan indicate how these could be generated.

 

The challenge

The main challenge of running any initiative with volunteers, particularly students in full time learn, is keeping them engaged throughout the process and keeping the data coming in. We hoped that by paying the students, we could overcome the engagement issues we had experienced in the PLC case study, where we offered the module for free.

 

There is also a danger when generating data from this type of imitative that the researcher involved in the process will introduce basis by unintentionally influencing the students. While the researcher can endeavour to keep this to a minimum, in order for the group, including the researcher, to work effectively together a certain amount of rapport and trust must be generated. To balance this it was decided to use coaching style questions to enable the students to consider their ideas, options and opinions, and the researcher to refrain fro putting anything into the discussions, except to indicate where the team could provided support and resources.

 

What we did

Once we had recruited the students, the first thing was to ensure that they understood the brief. An initial session was set up, using a presentation in which the research officer outlined what the expectations were from the perspective of the project. This also offered the students the opportunity to ask questions and clarify their role. We set out an initial commitment as follows:

 

• A total of 60 hours over 5 months
• 8 hours = 4 * 2 hour training sessions
• 8 hours = 4 * 2 hour feedback sessions
• 6 hours for reflection/data gathering
• 3 hours for the final conference in May
• 35 hours for group work

 

During this first session the students were given an explanatory statement about the project and their role within it and asked to sign a consent form. The manner in which data was to be collected was negotiated with the students. After some discussion about the various ways in which this could be done, with individuals expressing their preferences, an agreement was drawn up and emailed to the students after the session. The students decided that they would prefer to be supported in their reflections by responding to questions rather than trying to decipher what was required. To capture their initial thoughts about the project a survey was emailed to them using the free survey monkey software. Later surveys were done using Google forms as the researcher found this easier to capture data than with the free version of survey monkey. The agreement outlined four methods of data capture as follows:

 

1. As individuals to contribute their reflections via 8 semi-structured surveys over the course of the project.
2. Generate artefacts, photos of white boards, flip chart scribbles etc. that captured their idea generation process.
3. Use of a closed Facebook page to facilitate communication between meetings.
4. To engage in mini interviews during three feedback sessions as questions arise.

 

The next phase of the coaching ambassador initiative was to provide the students with more in depth coaching training than they had received during their course. The rationale for doing this was firstly to provide them with a wider range of techniques to draw on, which they may feel better communicated the benefits of coaching to their fellow students; and secondly, to give them a deeper understanding of their own awareness to aide them in their reflection process. This training was similar in content to that given during the staff training for implementing coaching with in their course. Once the training had been completed, a second survey was released to enable them to reflect on the training and their initial thoughts about what would be beneficial to students.

 

At this point the students were left to work out their own process of working together, using Facebook to communicate developments to researcher and their fellow ambassadors. The first feedback session was scheduled for the 21st February, giving the students time to get organised and have some discussion around the Christmas break. The intention here was then to have feedback sessions once per month up to the PC3 conference scheduled in May, with surveys every 2-3 weeks depending on the activity on Facebook and questions arising from any artefacts generated form the ambassadors meetings. This was not to be the case, as discussed next, as the students were finding it difficult to organise time around lectures and other job schedules.

 

What happened

At the first feedback session it became apparent from the ambassadors that they were finding it difficult to get together and develop the ideas to move forward. There had been little activity on Facebook after the last coaching training session. They suggested that while they had ideas individually they were unsure about how to facilitate the process of bringing them together and discussing them. At this point the group had also lost two members, one due to personal problems and the other due to scheduling problems with other part-time work.

 

The research officer suggested that this facilitation process could be coached during the intended feedback sessions, but this would then require someone or someway else to make notes, which was the researcher's intended role during these sessions. After some discussion a slight amendment to the original data gathering process was made, which included recording the sessions and increasing the number of sessions to encourage frequent team meetings. The researcher would facility the process by asking questions and offering any relevant knowledge regarding technology and/or learning and teaching practice. During the first session the research officer asked questions such as:

 

• Where are you now?
• Where are you going?
• How will you know when you have got there?
• What does successful promotion look like?
• What do you need in place to make that happen?

 

Figure 1 shows a photo of the first session's note taking by the research officer. The aim of this was to listen to the types of things the ambassadors were saying and identify those things that came out strongly for individuals or were repeated many times across the group. This coupled with the first recoding facilitated the process of generating Survey 3 and the initial list of nine ideas identified during the session.

 

Figure 1: Session 1 Generating ideas

 

Survey 3 asks the ambassadors to rate each of the ideas according to how practical they would be to implement and how successful they thought they would be. During this session some other issues were raised around the concepts of:

 

• How to make students more aware of what coaching is?
• How can they express the positive impact coaching has had on them and are students going to be interested in this?
• What does successful engagement in class look like?

 

The first part of the following session comprised further discussion of these ideas and then the research officer left the ambassadors to discuss which they wanted to pursue and to form a plan around these ideas. Figure 2 shows a photo of the plan the coaching ambassadors decided on. They focused on three time periods, short, medium and long term and placed each of the ideas into these categories. They added one new idea to the list, use of twitter as a means of advertising coaching, and the resources they could generate, which was given as a mid-term prospect along with resource generation. Interestingly they chose to drop the strategic review, something that received very mixed responses on the survey.

 

Figure 2: Session 2 Generating a Plan

 

Session three reviewed the work so far and discussed what was the best next step for implementation. The ambassadors felt that, in the short term, the most valuable and achievable action would be to present their ideas and experiences direct to their module tutor. They hoped that by doing so they could help in ironing out some of the things that they felt had not worked well for them as second and third years using coaching. They also thought it would be an opportunity to explore the plans and ideas the course team for Sports Business Management had for developing the PDP aspects of the course. This was particularly relevant given the undergraduate refocusing activity being implemented across the university, where all courses were being evaluated and re-framed in the context of three new graduate attributes:

• Being enterprising
• Having a global outlook
• Being digitally literate

 

The research officer arranged the meeting between the coaching ambassadors and the module tutor. It was hoped that this meeting could include the whole course team, but the ambassadors felt that their relationship with their module tutor was a better starting point for this first feedback session, and other sessions could be considered later. During the session the coaching ambassadors asked questions and presented ideas. The session was recorded and the research officer picked out key themes during the conversation, shown in Figure 3, but added nothing to the conversation unless directly asked. From this session a transcription was produced.  The ambassadors were also asked to complete Survey 4 after this meeting, where further questions were asked exploring this interview and their discussion post-interview.

 

Figure 3: Session 4 Interview with Module Tutor

 

The main themes to come from this were:

 

• Agreement between the coaching ambassadors and the module tutor that more coaching needs to be used at year one (level 4) for it to be effective across the course.
• The need for a face-to-face meeting prior to peer coaching, arranged as part of the course. To discuss the process and the contract and build rapport and trust. The tutor is sceptical about being able to arrange this.
• Agreement between the coaching ambassadors and the module tutor that more coaching time needs to put aside. Something which was currently under review for the tutor as part of the undergraduate refocus.
• The coaching ambassadors suggested, to the course tutor's surprise that their needs to be more assessment attached to coaching and that attendance needs to be compulsory and monitored as part of that assessment.
• The ambassadors put forward the idea of feeding back to tutors the effectiveness of their coaching. While the tutor understood that there is variation in effectiveness, they felt this would be difficult to encourage amongst staff members.
• One of the big issues for the ambassadors is the lack of understanding of coaching and for them more theory as well as practice was. Again this was something the tutor was not expecting and there was some discussion about developing a short course during induction week, run by students, as well devoting one of the two module assessments completely to coaching theory and practice.
• The development of You Tube resources was something the tutor was very interested in. They also suggested that this could be done via the Faculty You Tube channel and students’ video evidence of coaching could also be placed here as examples to future students. There were concerns with resourcing this from the ambassadors' perspective.
• There was some discussion about how to make use of the then upcoming coaching conference, by inviting course leaders so as to promote coaching to them.
• The idea of developing a coaching office was discussed and how this could be manned by students as part of their volunteering, which is part of the course. This office could then offer support to enable students to develop coaching practice and give feedback and run short courses. There was some discussion about approaching the current second years (level 5) to think about developing the idea as the coaching ambassadors will have left by then.

 

The tutor is aware that some of the coaching practice has not been effective with all students, “I know that not every student has developed that and it has been hard for some to keep in touch, but those that have, have had a really good experience of that”. The tutor was surprised at the types of ideas the ambassadors had generated, “but we never thought you would come up with similar ideas to what we we’re looking at anyway”. He also felt they were all good ideas, “for me its down to your time. Because what we’ve talked about I would want all of that, as a whole package”. There was some discussion about enabling the coaching ambassadors to return to university as guests speakers to sell the idea of coaching as“the university wants us to work with Alumni students, there maybe some opportunities for us to get you back in to do some work”.

 

The coaching ambassadors feel that coaching is a great benefit and that there are different aspects that need to be considered when embedding it with in education. “We know like in an ideal situation, a coachee will search for their coach, and really be in control of the situation, but we think within education especially at level 4 they need a bit of a nudge”. For the ambassadors it is the students’ lack of understanding about the process is what disengages them from it, and “more students will probably be interested if they got more out of it, the idea of what the concept is”. The ambassadors expressed that understanding was key to engagement, “so they know what they are trying to be encouraged to do”. This was partly to do with how coaching is very different from the students’ previous learning experience, “When you get to Uni its all about how you actually learn instead and a lot of them do struggle I think at first”. The ambassadors also expressed some surprise at how the mini-project had gone and how it had changed from their initial expectations: “I think, straight away we thought  at first we could implement a project, and just get people going and stand outside student union, and say “hi do you want to be coached?” We didn’t really think it through really”.

 

From this point forward attendance to sessions varied and responses to the surveys was low. This was mainly to do with the increased workload as the ambassadors approached their final assessment submissions. Two activities were attempted but for various reasons never quite got off the ground. The ambassadors were keen to produce YouTube resource, but it was not possible to get more than one or two them together at any one time. Instead they agreed to produce an audio recording of their experiences of coaching or experiences they had observed during their course. These are available here. The second activity was to have a second interview with other students who had attended a PC3 coaching workshops from a different course, that of Media Professionals. Although one student from the Media Professionals sign up for this, they ended up with a doctors appointment on the day of the scheduled interview. This was very late in the academic year and no further opportunities presented themselves.

 

Other than this the main focus of the ambassadors was to prepare for the coaching conference at the end of May. Of the eight students that started this imitative, two dropped out for personal and work related reasons. Of the remaining six only three attended the final commence as the others had been successful in gaining employment or had interviews on the day of the event. Two made the presentation at the conference, with the third providing a video as they were also attending an interview that day (he arrived later to talk to delegates demonstrating commitment to the project and to coaching). Further details of the conference, the presentations and resources can be found here.

 

Analysis and evaluation methods

The data that was selected for analysis was that captured by the surveys and the interview with the course tutors. The recordings taken during the sessions, while fine to refresh the memory of the researcher for asking critical questions via survey were not of high enough quality for a full transcription.

 

Where the surveys contained quantitative data simple statistics were applied to identify the mean and mode of the ratings data. As this data was completed by such small numbers that more sophisticated methods were not feasible. Here qualitative data should be considered in light of the quantitative data adding weight to statements and perceptions rather than defining such as fact.

 

The quantitative data was evaluated by identifying key terms and phrases across all the surveys and coding them according to aspects of the main themes of the evaluation : 

1. Coaching as a method to support assessment learning and teaching
2. The impact of coaching on students, staff and the institution
3. The impact of technology in supporting coaching
4. The impact of coaching to generate personalisation

 

In this case study we focus on the intended outcomes of this mini project. The main themes drawn out here are as follows:

• The ambassadors thoughts and experiences on coaching – linking directly to evaluation theme one and two at the student level. 
• The ambassadors evaluation of the ideas generated for promoting coaching to students – linking to theme one and three
• The ambassadors thoughts on the mini project – evaluation of this case study only
• The ambassadors’ perceptions of using technology to support coaching in education – linked directly to theme three
• The ambassadors perceptions of how coaching can best support learning and teaching practice – linked to theme one and four.

 

The coded data was entered into a spreadsheet and sorted according to codes, the ideas or questions it related to.  From thi,s statements could be generated about what the ambassadors were saying in particular contexts. These statements were generated by considering repeated or similar keywords and phrases, or where something strongly represented the overall themes coming out from this case study.

 

Evidence gathered

The following section presents both quantitative and qualitative evidence for the perceptions of the coaching ambassadors in regard to the use of coaching within education. This draws on their own experiences as coach and coachee and the ideas they developed and discussed during the coaching training and working sessions of the group. This is presented in six sections to cover the areas described above which are linked to the PC3 projects main evaluation questions.

 

Ambassadors’ thoughts and experiences of coaching

This section presents an overview of the individual ambassadors in the context of their experiences as both a coach and a coachee, with some focusing more on one role over the other. This includes their experience of the coaching training and their perceptions about coaching practice and what they think is significant.

 

CA01 – This ambassador attended all the training and the majority of the working sessions, but was unable to attend the final conference. They gave a short audio reflection on what they most wanted to say about their experience of coaching.

 

From the interview questions this ambassador draws on their experience of sports coaching, which generally uses a large amount of mentoring as well as coaching. One aspect they went on to highlight about the coaching training was how different these two are and how coaching can “help empower the client”. They found the coaching training useful both for understanding the coaching practice and from the context of the mini-project. They felt coaching was a valuable but difficult skill to master, in particular the reading of body language. “The way in which coaches unlock the pathways to the clients goals through structured responses and questions is really something i wasn't expecting to learn.” Learning to listen to the emotional responses enabled them to understand coaching as “a good skill to receive and give”. Overall their language suggests that this was quite a powerful experience for them.

 

They enjoyed the peer-to-peer coaching they undertook with first years, although not all their coachees made contact. They applied the GROW model as a means of keeping track and felt their coachees reached actions. They used online instant messaging (application not specified) to facilitate the process. They felt this may have been more effective in the circumstances than face-to-face as “i don't know if i would have received the same honest responses or have the questions as well prepared.”

 

One area they felt particularly strong about was the use of coaching in tutorials. From their experiences of their peers, who they felt didn’t understand or perceive coaching as a benefit, was that “they become agitated and infuriated that they have come out not with a clear plan”. This ambassador advised that coaching is not used all the time and that students are notified if it is going to be used.

 

CA02 – This ambassador attended all the training and the majority of the working sessions, and part of the final conference to which they submitted a video recording for their presentation. A short audio reflection on what they most wanted to say about their experience of coaching was also produced. For their final year dissertation they evaluated the impact of coaching on the Sports Business Management course.

 

Drawing on their experience of being coached as part of their Work Based Learning Module this ambassador expresses enthusiasm for the coaching process. From this experience they suggest that they learnt a lot about their weaknesses and “what I needed to change about myself in order to develop”. The felt that without their “coaching buddy I wouldn't of asked myself the same questions and would probably not have acknowledged my weaknesses”.

 

The aspect of coaching that this ambassador found most interesting was “the whole idea of self directed learning and ownership of my own goals was a different manner of learning that enthused me more so than being spoon fed information and listening to directions”. They felt that coaching had the most to offer within tutorials, understanding that an understanding of coaching principles was a pre-requisite for this. One way they suggested that this could be achieved was by getting the ambassadors to “tell their story other students”, something they felt the students would be interested in.

 

They did not have a very successful experience with the peer coaching with first years. “I have had very little contact from the students I have emailed about coaching”. This was primarily due to scheduling clashes but also due to lack of understanding on the student’s part. They received responses “to my email to arrange a session with a response along the lines of 'i'll email you with any questions about our work'”. For this ambassador the “key to the success of peer coaching is education on coaching” was a main theme.

 

CA03 - This ambassador attended all the training and the majority of the working session and did not attend the final conference. A short audio reflection on what they most wanted to say about their experience of coaching was also produced.

 

This ambassador saw coaching very much as a personal development tool and a management tool. “I need to be coached to aid with my education and all round development but also the ability to coach others is a useful tool to aid in developing skills of which I will need to use once employed as I do aim to work at higher levels within an organisation”. They were interested in enabling students to better understand themselves and focus on finding their own answers.

 

Although at the start of the mini-project they indicated they were looking forward to coaching the first years and “I hope this project will enable me to successfully develop the coachees”. However the experience was not positive and they felt that “coaching first years is hard as they are not motivated to improve themselves. They see the process meaningless as they are not being marked”. They felt that the students were looking more for mentoring and did not understand the coaching process.

 

One of the reasons this ambassador connected with the idea of working the problem out for themselves, is that they believe the majority of students want to be spoon-fed. Drawing on their own learning and coaching experience this was something they had identified as being less effective for themselves, preferring to work their answers out.

 

CA04 - This ambassador attended all the training and the majority of the working session and did not attend the final conference. A short audio reflection on what they most wanted to say about their experience of coaching was also produced.

 

This ambassador came to the mini-project with little practical experience of coaching although they had done some research around the area. During their second year of study they did not engage in the process feeling “honestly, I did not see the any benefit from at all and was skeptical about the whole experience”. After doing their research they became “become very interested in as I can now see what benefits can be obtained and how it can enhance one's self and others”.  This was one of the reasons why they wanted to get involved the mini-project, and when they “experienced the benefits I realised the value”.

 

Again this ambassador struggled to use coaching with their assigned second years. “it didnt really work, more so, with students expecting answers to be given to them. instead of them coming to the session with a issue or something they wanted coaching on they were asking what they should do or asking if they can have last years work. that said, if the students are taught to coach they may become more at one with how it works.”

 

One aspect of coaching that stood out for this ambassador was the impact it had had on their thinking. They felt they now made “decisions based on what I actually want not impulse” and often “I ask myself the questions before I go to a tutor” when they have something they are finding difficult.

 

CA05 - This ambassador attended half the training and the majority of the working session and did attend the final conference. A short audio reflection on what they most wanted to say about their experience of coaching was also produced.

 

For this ambassador “peer to peer coaching made me (more) aware of my abilities, boosted my self confidence and empowered me to back my ideas and implement them in assessments and group activities”. They felt that “it develop one's character but it is a great learning tool”. While very positive about coaching they felt it was a difficult concept to sell to students and that this may be possible by explaining “what differences coaching has done to our academic life as most of it is untangibles”. For this ambassador, being “spoon fed” was something they felt was unhelpful with their learning and development preferring to “try to get the solution in such a way that I am actively seeking for the answer”, something they felt was supported by coaching.

 

Again the focus of this issue was around students' understanding of coaching and the potential benefits. They felt that in coaching it is important to be “as open as possible” and that there needs to be a level of “interaction between the two of you”, aspects they felt were missing from their peer coaching sessions.

 

CA06 - This ambassador attended half the training and the majority of the working session and did attend the final conference. A short audio reflection on what they most wanted to say about their experience of coaching was also produced.

 

This ambassador was very positive about their coaching experience and how they felt it benefited their learning. “I feel that the coaching process is very beneficial to both the coach and the participant allowing peers to support and inspire each other. The experience definitely benefited my work-based learning work as my coaching partner helped me to make my outcomes SMARTER and also made me more confident knowing that there was always someone there”.

 

One area that they felt coaching would benefit students was that of assessments, “I think that lecturers could coach students with assignments rather than just setting the task and then telling students what to do”. The aspects of coaching they felt engaged with were ways different questions could be used and the focus on encouraging “a more in-depth reply” from students. From their own experience they had benefited from conversations with their coach as part of their own learning process, understanding how new knowledge and theories fitted together. This may have been more of a mentoring role rather than coaching. Regardless of this, the ambassador felt that access to a peer coach was beneficial and increased their confidence.

 

Their peer coaching experience with first year students was similar to that of the other ambassadors. There was a sense that the students didn’t understand what the process was and what it could give them, with many expecting answers not questions. They felt some students didn’t embrace it as they, the students, saw it as “just another other assignment”. Time again was an issue and they felt that the peer coaching maybe better suited to first and second years. 

 

Ambassadors’ evaluation of the ideas generated

During the first session nine ideas for the promotion of coaching to students were generated. The tenth idea came from the discussion students then had with their tutor. For each idea the students were asked to rate it according to how practical the idea was in terms of implementation, and how potential successful the idea would be to engage students in coaching. These dimensions were measured on a 5 point Likeart scale with one being poor and five being good. They were also asked to add any thoughts about the idea from their own perspective as a student.

 

Survey 3 evaluated ideas 1 through 9 all bar idea 6 were completed by five of the six ambassadors, which was only rated by four ambassadors; Survey 4 evaluated idea ten and was completed by two ambassadors. The following section presents the results of the ideas evaluation, (all quotes are direct and unedited) red shading indicates the highest scores and blue the lowest:

 

Idea 1: Developing coaching resources using YouTube and promoting them in various student course literature.
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	4.20	4
Potential success	3.40	3
Key thoughts	Enabling students to understand coaching was perceived as a key factor in engagement, which was emphasised in the thoughts on this idea. The ambassadors felt video was a means to generating engagement and the idea was “feasible to implement” and “useful for future students”. One ambassador suggested that it “It would of helped me a lot”. The only negative presented with this idea was the ability to get students to the resource in the first place.
Plan Position	Medium Term

 

Idea 2: Generate resources & coaching training for those staff running PDP type course.
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	3.60	4
Potential success	3.80	5
Key thoughts	While the ambassadors felt this was a key area to address as in being “significance of delivering coaching education”, they were aware of how staff maybe unwilling to engage in using the resources, staff “may be reluctant”. They did feel that it would be of great benefit to the modules currently implementing coaching by “increase the productivity of the module”. While success was perceived as potentially high for student engagement some of the ambassadors were “not entirely confident in this idea”
Plan Position	Medium term

 

Idea 3: Training staff in the use of coaching for use within seminars to better connect with students.
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	3.80	4
Potential success	4.20	4
Key thoughts	Of the three face-to-face delivery modes, tutorials and seminars were perceived as the most appropriate place for coaching to be used. However much of the ambassadors discussion indicated that both, but particularly seminars, needed to be made more effective. They also felt that “If students are involved in a much more regular dose of coaching, they will become much more familiar with it and as a result perhaps engage more”. The use of coaching in this mode was perceived as a means to creating amore one-to-one learning environment enabling “student navigate to the right answer”.
Plan Position	Long Tem (as implementing coaching in tutorials etc.)

 

Idea 4: Creating a generic module for coaching that is embedded at the beginning of a course. As a student what are your thoughts?
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	3.60	4
Potential success	4.40	5
Key thoughts	Understanding and experiencing coaching were felt by all the ambassadors as key to increasing student engagement. The idea of developing a coaching module would develop understanding and enable experience of coaching. They felt this should be done early on in the course, “get students involved from the outset”, that it should be compulsory and assessed. Once the students could “see the benefits” they would then “perhaps more would be willing to pick it up optionally”. Although this was the ambassadors top choice they felt that it would “take a long time to implement”. This idea led into the discussion around Idea 5, as being a more feasible option. Of all the ideas presented here this one came as a surprise to the course team, given that this is where we had originally started with the PLC module.
Plan Position	Short Term

 

Idea 5: Work with Module Leader to feedback on the peer coaching.
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	4.20	5
Potential success	3.20	4
Key thoughts	Although the students generally thought the peer coaching was beneficial and a positive experience they were disappointed in how few first years engaged in the process. “the current 1st years  were told it was compulsory to contact and attempt coaching with us third year but they still didn’t make an attempt.” This was one of the key issues they felt need to be feedback to the module tutor, as it had had significant impact on them as coaches and with the process of organising the sessions. They also felt this would be an opportunity to “see where our ideas fit in with the developments of the module and if we can integrate some in the short term”.
Plan Position	Short Term

 

Idea 6: Develop an interactive self-coaching experience based around GROW.
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	2.25	1
Potential success	3.75	5
Key thoughts	The ambassadors showed a great deal of enthusiasm for this idea during discussion, they thought that “it would be an ideal way to engage the students though”. This came from one ambassadors experienced of an interactive online application that simulated an interview with a famous sports person. Given the “timeframe” and “lack of funding and resources” they felt this was the least feasible idea. They were also unsure as to how possible it would be “to develop an interactive coaching program that asks the right questions gives the coachee space and ultimately actively listens”.
Plan Position	Long Term

 

Idea 7: Do a strategic review how courses/modules are at the moment and generate recommendations for the future.
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	3.40	4
Potential success	3.60	5
Key thoughts	Linking back to idea 3 some of the ambassadors felt that by looking across the board they could better identify of what changes to recommend to seminars and tutorials. There was a particularly focus on “keep the lecturers as they are but to change the seminars” and “recommendations for future changes to the way peer coaching is implemented”. One ambassador thought that  “an example lecture seminar would be a good way of getting the views across” and it would also demonstrate the  and “effort that we’ve gone to”.  Generally the comments were mixed some ambassadors consider this idea as “pointless like many reviews”.
Plan Position	Not entered into plan

 

Idea 8: Providing feedback to lectures, either anonymously or by asking if they would like feedback
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	3.80	5
Potential success	2.40	3
Key thoughts	While not directly linked to the promotion of coaching to fellow students, this idea came from a discussion around the ambassadors’ experiences with different tutors implementing or not implementing coaching. There was a sense that those that implemented it poorly generated problems for the students. The ambassadors felt that there was a need to be able to provide anonymous feedback to staff about their effectiveness in delivery and student support. Giving staff the opportunity to raise their awareness in circumstances such as “They might not necessarily be doing anything wrong but different sets of people take things differently”. This was an area the ambassadors felt strongly about in terms of its importance but did feel that some staff would not engage with the process, that they would not have the “ability to utilise feedback which they May be reluctant to receive, especially if they have been teaching a long time”. They felt there was a lot to be gained from the student perspective: “if an anonymous people won't be afraid to voice what they really think of the situation” and “help students gain more and lecturers develop themselves”. However a number were “extremely sceptical of feedback” and “I don't think it would be successful”.
Plan Position	Short Term

 

Idea 9: Generate some materials for the Skills for Learning site to encourage peer coaching.
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	4.00	5
Potential success	3.60	5
Key thoughts	Similar in nature to idea 1, they thought that this would be a “very practical idea and they will engage more”. Again there were concerns about “directing traffic” to the resources, but this could be negated if they could “ensure the take-up of module leaders” to use and point to the resources. The focus here was on producing more text based resources, similar to those already available at the site, around “a set of basic student problems, i.e. essay writing, presentations, problems that most students have” using a coaching approach. Some thought the process of development “would be a chore” and that “people tend to prefer video examples”. There was a general doubt that students “rarely use skills for learning” and that there were “already tips on coaching on skills for learning” that were not being utilised.
Plan Position	Medium Term

 

Idea 10: Coaching Office
	Mean	Mode
Practical to implement	2.5	N/A
Potential success	4	N/A
Key thoughts	This idea was discussed at some length during their interview with the course tutor. They general thought the idea had potential but would be difficult to implement given they were due to leave at the end of the year. There was also potential for resourcing issues, as “finding students to set it up and take over may prove difficult”. On the positive side they thought that as the “initiative more official hence word can get out more”, “students will feel more comfortable being coached by their peers” and “those running the office will get more experience”.
Plan Position	Developed after planning stage

 

Table 1 Coaching Ambassador’s Evaluation of the Generated Ideas

 

 

Ambassadors’ perceptions of the mini project

 

 

 

	Survey 1		Survey 2		Survey 3		Survey 4
Ambassador	A	S	A	S	A	S	A	S
CA01	?	Y	3	5	4	5	-	-
CA02	Y	?	4	4	3	5	-	-
CA03	?	Y	3	3	-	-	-	-
CA04	Y	?	2	3	4	3	4	4
CA05	?	?	-	-	4	4	4	4
CA06	?	Y	4	3	-	-	-	-
CA07	Y	Y	-	-	-	-	-	-
CA08	N	?	2	3	2	3	-	-

 

Table 2 Perceived Achievability and Success of the Mini-Project

 

 

Ambassadors’ perceptions of using technology to support coaching in education

Although technology takes a secondary role in the latter half of the PC3 project, where the focus is more on the promotion of coaching, it was perceived by all ambassadors as an invaluable and essential tool in the promotion of coaching. The majority of the ideas presented above would require some use of technology, even if it was simple the use of a web site to host generated resources.

 

To evaluate this aspect the data from the surveys was examined in number of ways. Firstly the ambassadors, the initial eight, were asked on the job application form about what technologies they engaged with. The results of this are shown in Table 3. From this it is clear to see that Facebook, Twitter and Skype feature strongly for all students and a number of others are used by only two or three individuals. 

 

Technology	Number of ambassadors
Facebook	8
Twitter	7
Skype	7
Email	3
BBM	3
WhatsApp	2
You Tube	2
MySpace	2
Texting	1
Website	1
H15	1
MSN	1

Table 3 Technologies used by Ambassadors

All the ambassadors used a mix of technology depending on the type of communication they were engaging in, such as “Facebook I feel is the most useful for informal day to day communication between friends and colleagues, however I find email the most useful way to communicate specific messages in a more formal manner between one another”. This demonstrates a clear understanding of how different technologies can be used and the benefits they can bring. This was evident across the ambassadors.

 

On survey 1, question 6 the ambassadors were directly asked if they saw a role of technology in promoting coaching and if so what that role could be. All the ambassadors responded positively to the role of technology. Again there was a particular emphasis on the use of social networking, something some of them may have already used to facilitate coaching. They felt that social media could provide a means to facilitate the communication as well as organising and tracking the coaching sessions. Video, You tube, Skype and email were also put forwards as potential coaching mediums.

 

The final means of assessing technology was to count the keywords across all the surveys and group them into particular technology types. Table 4 shows the results of this process with social networking again coming very high. Although at the interview stage only a small number of students mentioned the use of any type of multimedia, when considering the ideas they have generated and the promotion of coaching they clearly felt it would be an important technology to use. 

 

Type of technology	Terms used	Number of counts
Multi Media	You tube, Media, Video, podcast	13
Social Networking	Facebook, Twitter, Social Networking, Social Media	11
Online Conferencing	Skype	4
Email	Email	2
Messaging Services	MSN, BBM	2
Website	website	2
Virtual Learning Environment	VLE	1
Other	PowerPoint, Google Scholar, Technology	5

 

Table 4 Count of Technology Terms used Across Surveys 1 to 4

 

What is surprising, from one perspective, is how few references were made to the universities VLE (virtual learning environment). Considering this is something that all the ambassadors will have utilised over their three year degree, for accessing information, developing the portfolio and submitting work. However this could demonstrate that students no longer perceive this as technology or that it is technology but not within their control or not suitable to the ideas they have generated.

 

Some of the benefits the ambassadors put forward for using technology with coaching were: “Straightforward to do”; “Useful to future students”; “Technology is a quick and easy option”; and “Fusing coaching and social networking makes coaching less formal and intimidating hence more and more students can get”. 

 

Ambassadors’ perceptions of how coaching can best support learning and teaching practice

Across the surveys gathered the ambassadors identified a number of benefits and potential areas for the use of coaching as follows:

 

• They perceived that coaching enables self-directed learning by enabling students to “unlock answers for themselves”.
• The use of coaching enables more one-to-one conversations with either tutors or fellow students. This is something they feel there should be more of.
• Two areas of the curriculum were perceived as being particularly appropriate for coaching. That of tutorials, one-to-one coaching, and seminars, as group coaching.
• Seminars were also perceived as the ideal for coaching training and practice, as they are able to be “more interactive and more student based”.
• Assessments were another area that they perceived coaching could be effective. For example being couched on a draft to identify areas for development. From some there was the perception that this would be “most effective placed within individual assignments”.
• It was perceived that coaching would provided the most benefit with the first year of study and that third year students would engage more as “we take it far more seriously”.

 

Although the ambassadors found the process of coaching beneficial there were a number of issues they identified in order to generate effective coaching within a learning environment:

 

• It is critical for students to understand how coaching works and what they can get out of it either by teaching or by experience. This is one of the key things the ambassadors felt need to be in place, “prior knowledge of coaching is the best way to build and promote”.
• Where coaching is used students need to be aware of this, the role they need to play and the potential benefits. If not student’s become “agitated and infuriated that they have come out not with a clear plan”. It was also suggested that “during tutorials I advise that it is not all a coaching method”.
• Lectures need to develop a deeper understanding of coaching. The ambassadors perceived that many will be unwilling to participate in training or receive feedback from students on how effective it is.
• To give coaching credibility and encourage investment by students it is important that it is assessed in a credible and meaningful way. There was also suggestion that coaching activities should be strictly monitored and made compulsory until the benefits are identified by the students.
• If coaching is to be used it should be applied from as early on in the course as possible, giving the best opportunity for its uptake and the development of the skills and mind set.
• Lectures were perceived as the least effective place to use coaching although some ambassadors suggested that a “hybrid of coaching and mentoring and tutoring” may be appropriate.
• There was a general consensus that the peer coaching across years (3^rd year to 1^st) was not successful, although all the ambassadors suggested it had the potential to be successful. They felt that this role might be better facilitated by second years.

 

Summary

On review the coaching ambassador initiative proved a wealth of evidence for the use of coaching within education. However they also identified how difficult it would be to engage students with the process if they did not perceive a direct benefit or it was not credibly embedded within the curriculum and the assessment process. For those students that do engage, such as the coaching ambassadors, benefits were perceived in terms of their own development; the way they understood their own learning process and the way the thought about things; their potential employability particularly at management level and the development of their confidence and communication skills.

 

The interview the students facilitated with their course tutor has provide the course team with new insights as well as confirmation on what needs to be developed. To this end the team have invested in a part-time fully trained coach to support the training of students and further embedding the coaching process within the curriculum.