Conclusions
With the completion of this USA/non-USA analysis, and the writing of this eighth essay, I will have brought this first phase of the Development of Coaches Study to a close. I have performed simple t-tests to see if there are differences between various coaching populations. A few important differences were found; however, in general I was unable to discern major differences as a function of age, gender or country of residence. The several differences that were found to be significant should be further explored.
It is now time to move on to the second phase of this study. I will be engaging much more sophisticated statistical tools to determine if there are some discernable patterns of developmental factors and if there are certain factors that seem to contribute the most to the development of coaches. Age is one of the demographic factors to receive the greatest attention during this second phase. It is important that we return to an investigation of potential differences as a function of age, because we can treat age as a continuous variable rather than as just two categories (below and above 50) as we have done in this first study. We will be able to conduct correlational analyses including responses to other survey items as related to age. We will also be exploring potential curvilinear relationships between age and responses to survey items. Most importantly, in the next phase we will be further exploring the role played by certification—for it seems to have some impact on the development of coaches. Clearly, further study is needed to better identify and discern the nature of differences that might not yet have been discovered regarding all the characteristics of coaches.
It is important to note that this second phase will still not be adequate to the task of informing the professional coaching community about the best ways in which to prepare coaches and provide life-long learning opportunities for those already in the field. A third phase is being planned which will be the design and implementation of a new, more focused study that solicits input from a much larger, more diverse and more representative population. Even more advanced statistical procedures can be applied to access some of the deeper and more systematic interweaving of various developmental factors.
A fourth phase is also envisioned in which data from the original studies on the development of clinicians done by David Orlinsky and his colleagues (Orlinsky and Rønnestad, 2005) can be compared with the data generated in the current study and phase three study. This comparison would be of great value in addressing the widely voiced question regarding how the practice of professional coaching compares to that of clinical psychology and specifically psychotherapy.
I would suggest that there are some important and exciting times ahead. Not only is there an opportunity to learn more about the field of professional coaching, there is also the opportunity to tangibly advance the movement to more evidence-based formulations of coaching theory and practice. These formulations could, in turn, build on a foundation of appreciative global dialogue among those providing professional coaching services, those receiving these services, and those benefiting from successful coaching engagement. Hopefully, the studies that we are conducting and that we are publishing in the Library of Professional Coaching can contribute to this dialogue.
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