Submitter Email: rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

Submitter Website: www.ifi.ku.dk/english/staff/profile/?id=157311

Research Question
Understanding coach education: Concepts of developing a professional knowledge base for coach practitioners - The idea is to investigate and compare different educational programs in coaching/coaching psychology. There are a number of questions to be answered:
• On what concept of professional learning is the program based?
• How are theory and practice interrelated?
• How is the basis for coaching skills defined and implemented in the program?

Methodology
The research is based on a multiple-case study of three different educational programs:
• A short training program of a private company
• An ICF or EMCC accredited program
• A University Master program

Data collection includes the following:
• Presentation and evaluation of the theoretical foundation, i.e., the different approaches to developing professional knowledge
• Evaluation of the curricula of each program
• Interviews with the scientific and educational leaders of each program
• Participant classroom observation of each program
• Interviews with the students of each program
• Participant observation in supervisory sessions of each program

Hypothesized Results
New concepts of developing a professional knowledge base for coach practitioners.

Potential Implications
There has been a long-standing discussion on how to develop professional knowledge. In psychology a split between academic research and professional practice has been visible for many years. The result has been the emergence of two paradigms and educational concepts in psychology:

• The academic and research-based concept based in the university system
• The concept of practitioner education, mainly seen in further vocational training in psychotherapy and now also in coaching (see Kvale, 1992)

With the new upcoming Master degree programs in coaching a new trend might come into being, a trend that might focus on greater integration of the research basis and professional training (Hoshmand & Polkinghorne, 1992).

References
Hoshmand, L.T. & Polkinghorne, D.E. (1992). Redefining the science practitioner relationship and professional training. American Psychologist, 47, 55-66.
Kvale, S. (1992). A postmodern psychology. A contradiction in terms? In S. Kvale (ed.), Psychology and postmodernism (pp. 31-57). London: Sage.

Submitter Email: rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

Submitter Website: www.ifi.ku.dk/english/staff/profile/?id=157311

Research Question
Coach-coachee relationship and its impact on changing processes during coaching - The planned study aims to identify, analyse and disseminate knowledge about the evidence bases of coaching relationships and shall cast light on the following: What factors in the relationship between the coach and coachee and which experiences for the coachee have a positive effect on learning and development in the coaching process?

Methodology
The project can be developed as a collaborative endeavour between several coaching researchers who use different coaching approaches: cognitive behavioural, existential, solution-focused, systemic, narrative, integrated. In that sense the project could be divided into a number of sub-projects that use the same analytical methods.

These sub-projects shall be included in a multiple-case analysis which involves twelve coachees with various backgrounds. The coachees – equally divided between males and females – can be selected among students, employees, executives with substantial leadership experience or participants with special challenges such as stress, illness, unemployment, etc.

Every participant will be coached five times during a two-month period. The total number of participants depends on the number of sub-projects. The coach shall serve both as an external coach and as a research practitioner with a scientific or reflective viewpoint.

The following data collection methods shall be employed:
• All participants will keep a log in which they record their experiences, thoughts, wishes, reflections and visions after each coaching session.
• After the final coaching session, all participants will be interviewed about how they experienced the coaching dialogues, their perceived development, which goals if any were achieved, what changes they experienced, wishes for the future and hopes that may have become more concrete during the period.
• All coaching sessions will be recorded on video to document the process.

Hypothesized Results
Analysis: The contents of the logs and the final interviews will be qualitatively analyzed in order to generate the main characteristics and possible key situations in the coaching process:
• What leads to learning and development in the coachee?
• Which criteria are considered most important in the relationship between coachee and coach?
• What leads to a positive outcome?

The video recordings will be used as contextual validation of the applied methods, compared to other methods. Selected statements in the logs will remain in their original context; specific videos sequences will be revisited to further develop an understanding of specific key situations in the coaching dialogue.

The analyses will be presented in two ways:
• Using a cross-case approach where the main criteria for changing processes are emphasized
• As narratives of single clients to get a grasp of selected cases in their entirety

In the first treatment the different sub-studies with their different focuses on specific coaching approach will be evaluated separately.

In the final phase all the different sub-studies will be cross-evaluated to cast light on possible and unique key criteria of the specific coaching approaches, or possible common criteria for all coaching approaches.

Potential Implications
The planned study aims to identify, analyse and disseminate knowledge about the evidence bases of coaching relationships.

Submitter Email: rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

Submitter Website: www.ifi.ku.dk/english/staff/profile/?id=157311

Research Question
Health coaching as social empowerment. The research question is: What impact does a community-based health coaching intervention have on the lifestyle of the participants – compared to a traditional advisory service in relation to the activity program at hand (change in physical activity and lifestyle)?

Methodology
The idea is to establish self-help coaching groups as a supplemental intervention while the other intervention groups are involved only in an exercise or health program. In this interventional research both qualitative evaluation (analyses of participant interviews) and questionnaires will be used for assessment.

The theoretical framework is based on the following principles:
• The individual group member as well as the group as a whole set the agenda.
• The health coach does not appear as an expert but as a facilitating participant of the group process.
• The group members must find their own way of acting and speaking about their health challenges.
• Developing social capital through coaching is a process of co-creating meaning.

Hypothesized Results
The aim is to embed the coaching intervention in a community psychological discourse where the main intent is to develop social capital and empowerment of the participants. The French sociologist Bourdieu (1983) has defined social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (p. 249). The development of social capital, here through self-help groups and social networks that promote health and exercise, is seen as the most decisive factor for the development of healthy living.

Potential Implications
Health, overweight and lack of physical activity are challenges for a growing number of people all over the world. Most campaigns and advisory services have failed. Therefore a new approach in the form of community-based health coaching shall be applied in this project.

Reference
Bourdieu, P. (1985). The forms of capital. In Richardson, J.G. (Ed), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–258) New York: Greenwood.

Submitter Email: rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

Submitter Website: www.ifi.ku.dk/english/staff/profile/?id=157311

Research Question
Community oriented group coaching as a new form of sport psychological intervention.

Methodology
Both forms of intervention will be evaluated:
• Through a number of questionnaires measuring self-regulation, state and trait anxiety, goal setting abilities, and arousal regulation
• Through performance assessment (objectively and subjectively)

The evaluation takes place prior to intervention, with a two-month interval during intervention periods, at termination of intervention, two months after intervention termination and six months after intervention termination. The research design for both is more or less identical and will also include some experiential feedback from the participants of both intervention groups. A control group is included.

Hypothesized Results
It will be interesting to see the differences between these two forms of intervention. The first is very much focused on specific functions of the athlete while the coaching intervention is more an invitation to a reflective process that may influence the athlete on the social level: how can I share my knowledge with others and thereby develop my performance? Sport is chosen here, because sport is based on very clear criteria of performance and success.

Potential Implications
Combined with the research project “Development of an evidence-based sport psychological training program for young elite athletes” conducted in my research group by one Ph.D. student, a second form of intervention shall be added, an intervention which has a coaching-related point of departure. While the Ph.D. study is based on individually oriented programs which train mental skills (relaxation, visualization, stress management, goal setting), this second intervention will be based on a community and narrative psychology framework: a group coaching intervention focusing on athletes’ reflections on specific elite sport situations - a group learning process in the athletes’ community of practice, e.g., through outside witness procedures (White, 2007).

Reference
White, M. (2007). Maps of narrative practice. New York: Norton.

Submitter Email: rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

Submitter Website: www.ifi.ku.dk/english/staff/profile/?id=157311

Research Question
Coaching Survey
• Who receives coaching services in the organisation?
• What are the objectives and organisational goals of coaching?
• How is the success of the coaching intervention or the coaching project defined and evaluated in the organisation?

Methodology
The intention is to develop an online questionnaire with a number of multiple choice questions to be answered by a contact person in the human resource department of the organisation. The aim is to gather knowledge about:
• Who receives coaching services in the organisation?
• What are the objectives and organisational goals of coaching?
• How is the success of the coaching intervention or the coaching project defined and evaluated in the organisation?

Hypothesized Results
The results shall give a picture of the current dissemination of coaching and its intended and perceived benefits. The survey shall be repeated regularly and will help to elucidate developments in the field.

An intercultural dimension including different countries would be valuable.

Potential Implications
The coaching field in Denmark – probably much like many other countries – is still very diffuse. Some companies and organisations have a very structured approach, where coaching has a clear perspective and goal as part of human resource development. In other areas coaching is more or less outsourced as fringe benefits on the same level as a mobile telephone or broadband at home. With the support of a small group of external researchers and consultants, it is my idea to prepare a survey directed towards a wide-spread and diverse number of private and public organisations with the goal of casting light on coaching as a developmental tool in an organisational context.

Submitter Email: rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

Submitter Website: www.ifi.ku.dk/english/staff/profile/?id=157311

Research Question
Every novice dreams of being an expert, but the path towards becoming an expert is not straightforward and often complex. Intuition may play a significant role in developing expertise. (Dreyfuss, Anthanasiou & Dreyfuss, 2000). A qualitative multiple-case study which includes a number of well-known expert coaches may help unravel the mysteries of coaching expertise.

The research project aims to investigate the possible specific features of expert coaching and of expert coaches’ dialogical competences:
• How can expertise in coaching be defined?
• What are the central constituents of coaching expertise?
• How can expertise in coaching been developed and learned?
• What is it in expert coaching that ensures unique outcomes?
• What makes experts special?
• How are expert coaches different from novices?

Methodology
The research is based on a multiple-case study design including about eight expert coaches from different coaching traditions. The study includes:
• Video observation of about six coaching session per expert coach
• Logs of expert coaches which captures their reflections after each session
• Research interviews with all expert coaches that aim to elucidate their dialogical strategies, meta-cognitions and reflections

Hypothesized Results
The study might be able to show that developing expertise is a very complex journey. It is not just years of experience and education that counts but more subtle factors that only can be highlighted through case-studies.

Reference
Dreyfuss, H.L., Anthanasiou, T. & Dreyfuss, S.E. (2000). Mind over machine. The power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Submitter Email: rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

Submitter Website: www.ifi.ku.dk/english/staff/profile/?id=157311

Research Question
An empirical study about the extent to which coaches reflect on and are aware of the theoretical foundation that informs their coaching practice:
• How are coach practitioners informed by theory?
• How does this possible theoretical foundation come into being in their coach practice?
• What kind of qualities do these theories have? Are they “personal theories” or in what degree are they based in the research literature (formal theories)?
• How are personal and formal theories interrelated in practice and reflected in their practice?

This research might be enlarged by including practitioners with different educational backgrounds, experience and training.

Methodology
• In-depth interview of practicing coaches about how they are theoretically informed in regard to their practice
• Video documentation of selected coaching session of each coach practitioner included in the study
• Video confrontation of selected moments of their coaching sessions combined with an interview around how their practice is theoretically informed.

Hypothesized Results
The central question is in what degree the coaches’ practice is informed by formal theory – or is it more informed by personal theory? Is there a difference if we look at the coaches’ educational background, experience and training?

Potential Implications
Based on the theory of Practitioner Researcher (Jarvis, 1999), we know that practitioners with little experience are mainly informed by personal theory.

What changes ensue when practitioners have a longstanding coaching experience?

Submitter Email: margaretm@wellcoaches.com

Submitter Website: wellcoaches.com

Research Question
Can having a professional health coach be a part of a physician’s office team reduce hospitalizations, exacerbation visits, and complications by keeping in regular contact with the chronically ill patient population?

Physician office visits are often limited in time. Patients are acutely aware of how busy their physician are. The patient’s questions often do not get answered because the patient doesn’t feel it is important enough to take up the physician’s time. Calling the nurse and having her call back is time consuming. On the other hand, coaches can check in periodically with chronically ill patients and address the patient’s concerns before they become an exacerbation or a complication.

Methodology
Set up a 6 month comparison of two practices matched on size and composition of patient population. One will have a coach assigned to work with patients with chronic hypertension and obesity, diabetes and obesity, or asthma and obesity. The other practice will follow their regular protocol with matched subjects. An assessment of demographic variables, inclusion criterion parameters and other psychosocial variables will be administered at baseline and at 6 months. A review of all of the patient charts will determine number and kind of visits (exacerbation or well checkup) in the previous year to the physician, and to the hospital. This will be repeated for the year that includes the 6 months of the study and 6 months post coaching.

Hypothesized Results
Coached group will have fewer exacerbation visits and more well checkups that non-coached group.

Potential Implications
There is the potential of major cost saving if chronic patients are better managed and have fewer exacerbations and complications that require immediate visits or hospitalizations.

Submitter Email: margaretm@wellcoaches.com

Submitter Website: wellcoaches.com

Research Question
Does coaching improve a client’s hope, optimism, social functioning and perceived availability of support?

Methodology
The following four instruments are validated measures.
• The Hope Scale is a 12-item measure assessing two aspects of hope: agency and pathways (Snyder, et al., 1991). Life Orientation Test.
• The Life Orientation Test (LOT) is a 10-item measure of optimism (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994).
• Social Provisions Scale (SPS). The SPS is a 24-item self-report questionnaire that assesses various social functions that relationships with others provide (Cutrona & Russell, 1987).
• Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS SSS). The MOS SSS is a brief, self-report instrument that assesses perceived availability of support (Sherbourne & Stewart, 1991).

These instruments would be administered pre and post 3 months of wellness coaching.

Hypothesized Results
There would be a positive improvement in all scores.

Potential Implications
This would produce a concrete measurement of some of the key developmental benefits of coaching.

Submission appreciation to Mary Lou Galantino, PT, Ph.D. & Pam Schmid, BS, CWC

Submitter Email: gabe.highstein@gmail.com

Research Question
Does wellness coaching for cancer survivors improve and sustain health related outcomes such as improved quality of life, reduced depression, and an increase in healthy lifestyle behaviors that reduce risk of recurrence as compared to other common interventions?

Methodology
Eighty cancer survivors randomized into either a control or intervention group. One group would engage in 3 months of wellness coaching bi-weekly, followed by two-three follow up sessions over 6 months. The control group would receive healthy lifestyle information or participate in a cancer.

specific social support group.
Survey measures at baseline and at the completion of the program:
• Biomarkers such as height, weight, body fat, and others TBD
• “WellCoach” well-being assessment
• Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond)
• Quality of Life Patient/Cancer Survivor (Ferrell, City of Hope)
• Exercise, Behavior and Daily Activity Self-Efficacy Scales (Bandura)
• Exercise Stage Assessment (Nigg)
• Qualitative questions for narrative impact of program
• Steen Happiness Index (SHI)

Hypothesized Results
Further validation of the results found in the pilot study.

Potential Implications
Wellness coaching is a comprehensive approach that has demonstrated significant impact in multiple areas for cancer survivors in our pilot. If results are confirmed in a randomized controlled trial with longitudinal results (up to a year) showing sustainability of the effects, reimbursement may become a reality. Cancer costs our country $250 billion dollars each year. Reducing its impact both to insurers and the survivor make wellness coaching a viable intervention that will benefit all.