Objectives: This paper describes an independently conducted research study to develop appropriate measures and evaluate the coaching/mentoring programme that the London Deanery had been running for over five years. It also aims to explore specific challenges in the evaluation of a large-scale coaching programme and to suggest new solutions. Design: The challenges to evaluation included the need to use established but also context-relevant measures and the need for a rigorous but also pragmatic design that took into account a number of practical constraints. Overall it was a mixed method research design consisting of a within-subject quantitative study with support of a qualitative grounded theory methodology conducted in parallel. Method: The selected measures for the quantitative part of the study included employee engagement, selfefficacy and self-compassion. An additional questionnaire SWRQ (Specific Work-Related Questionnaire) was developed as the result of a qualitative investigation with stakeholder representatives. It included a selfestimation by the coached clients of the extent to which they could attribute each change to the coaching received rather than any other factor. The qualitative part of the study included interviews with stakeholders and the analysis of responses to an open question in the SWRQ. Results: 120 (78 per cent) of matched responses pre- and post-coaching were analysed and seven stakeholders interviewed. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis show improvement in all chosen scales. The analysis also shows that coaching was a major contributor to these changes. Conclusions: The paper argues for the development of additional methods in outcome research on coaching programmes that are aligned with the main principles and philosophy of coaching as a practice. Keywords: Coaching; evaluation of coaching; outcome research.
Bachkirova, TArthur, LReading, E
Faculty of Business\Department of Business and ManagementFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\School of Education
Year of publication: 2015Date of RADAR deposit: 2016-05-12