Educators’ perceptions of the value of coach mindset development for their well-being

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine high school educators’ (three teachers, a career counselor and a social worker) perceptions of training to develop a coach mindset and the perceived impact of the training on their professional and personal well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

Individual semi-structured interviews and 16 h of observational data of professional development were collected.

Findings

Five themes emerged from the data. Participants: challenged themselves to work on coach skills; affirmed the importance of relationships; identified areas of increased skill development; envisioned coach training throughout the school; and applied a coach mindset in other domains. These themes are related to two constructs of psychological capital – efficacy and hope – which contributed to participants’ professional and personal well-being.

Research limitations/implications

The low number and selection of participants make transferability of the findings difficult.

Practical implications

Findings indicate that a coach mindset may increase educators’ well-being as they learn to build positive student, collegial and personal relationships. Recommendations for further research include exploring relationships between the development of a coach mindset, increased positive student outcomes and educator well-being.

Social implications

The development of a coach mindset may lead to increased educator well-being and positivity.

Originality/value

As few empirical studies exist regarding the effectiveness of coach training for teachers, the findings of this study fill a gap in the literature regarding these topics.

Citation

Lowery, K. (2019), "Educators’ perceptions of the value of coach mindset development for their well-being", International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 310-324. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-02-2019-0032