Evaluating the Inclusion of Academic Coaching within an Online-Only Postgraduate Module (DD801)

• Project Team: Lucy WildeKesi MahendranKate Garland
• Subject Discipline: Psychology and Counselling
• Theme: Employability/CareersMental health & wellbeing
• Project Aim: Enables more students to achieve their study goalsEnhances employability and career progressionImproves and enhance the learning experience of students
• Status: Complete
• Date: April 2019 to September 2023

The central aim of the project is to evaluate the academic coaching provided in DD801. If coaching is found to be effective in improving students’ outcomes and experience, then continued use of this within DD801, and dissemination of findings supporting its use to other colleagues, may help to improve outcomes in each of the areas addressed below. Potential for enhancing the existing coaching provision may also be identified, in which case addressing any issues identified may further enhance outcomes in the priority areas. 

The coaching provided in DD801 focusses specifically on supporting students to identify module/course related goals and to evaluate progress towards these. If students can use coaching to identify where they are not meeting their goals, this may enable them to either change their own approach to address this, or to seek additional support to overcome the barriers identified, thus facilitating progress towards study goals. Evaluation of the DD801 coaching will identify whether the support provided via coaching is effective in this respect. If it is, this could be shared as an example of good practice, enabling other modules to incorporate coaching elements. If evaluation identifies aspects of the DD801 coaching strategy for which changes might increase the ability of students to meet their study goals, then changes can be incorporated into the DD801 module as part of the module review process. 

Many postgraduate students’ study goals will be related to their employment aspirations, therefore some of the goals identified during coaching will likely be career/employability related. Encouraging early identification of such goals, shaping these into SMART targets and evaluating progress is therefore of potential value to employability/career progression. It may also help those who are initially less career focussed to focus on their motivation, any particular areas they might want to specialise in and what they have to do to get there. For the students to get the most out of this aspect of coaching and use it when seeking employment, it is important that they conceptualise the objective setting and coaching in DD801 as related to their career aspirations. Evaluation of DD801 coaching will provide insight into how students experience and respond to coaching in terms of longer-term goals. It would also be of value to understand whether students can take the objective setting skills they’ve gained into their next module, and whether there is scope to augment existing provision to provide a bridge into the next level of master’s study in terms of goal setting (e.g., informal tutor feedback has suggested that an additional end of the module coaching session would be beneficial). 

Coaching extends the traditional tutor-student relationship, and so may enhance students’ learning experience if it is framed and delivered in an optimal manner. It provides opportunity for focussed one-to-one support from tutors, which may be perceived by students and tutors to be of particular value in an online only module. Early in the module coaching provides space within the module structure for focussed reflection on students’ own motivations, and then provides measurable targets against which their own progress can be evaluated during the module. It also enables students to think about progress in a different way from the traditional measurement (e.g., against TMA grades). Where students are explicitly aware of achieving their goals, they may experience an enhanced experience of their learning journey. Coaching is student rather than tutor led, and if it is delivered effectively it may result in greater feelings of autonomy and self-efficacy. However, it is important that we explicitly evaluate the impact of coaching on the student learning experience from the perspective of those involved, rather than assuming than this additional input, and aspects of novelty, are perceived positively by those involved.