An Evaluation of a Life Coaching Group Program:

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An Evaluation of a Life Coaching Group Program

Initial findings from a wait-list control study

• Suzy Green, University of Wollongong
• Dr Lindsay Oades Supervisor, University of
  Wollongong
• Dr Anthony Grant - Supervisor, University of
  Sydney
• Research supported by the Illawarra Institute for
  Mental Health

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You see things, and you say, Why? But I dream
of things that never were and I say Why not?
  George Bernard Shaw.
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Coaching Positive Psychology

• Within field of empirical psychology, happiness
  well-being largely unexamined during last 50
  years.
• More recently, a Positive Psychology has emerged.

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Coaching Positive Psychology

• Recent research shows positive emotions, hope,
  optimism may help build psychological resilience
  and thus serve as buffers against depression and
  other mental disorders.
• Thus suggests the importance of studying positive
  human traits eg hope, well-being and the
  techniques utilised to build on eg coaching.

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What Is Coaching?

• Coaching aims to improve performance and
  well-being in an individuals work or personal
  life.
• Coaching psychologists work with well-functioning
  clients, rather than a clinical population.

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The Concept of Coaching

• Coaching provides a conducive environment for
  goal-setting and progression towards attainment.
• There has been extensive research conducted on
  the benefits of goal-setting 20 years eg
  effects on well-being.

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Concept of Coaching contd

• Recently, Grant (unpublished manuscript) has
  proposed a Psychology of Coaching.
• Utilises theories techniques from clinical
  counselling psychology eg Transtheoretical Model
  of Change, a model of self-regulation and both
  cognitive-behavioural and solution-focused
  techniques.
• .

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How Is Coaching Relevant to Mental Health?

• 1 in 5 (18) of Australian adults was affected by
  mental illness during the 12mth period from mid
  1996 to mid 1997 (1997 National Survey of Mental
  Health Wellbeing).
• The direct cost of mental disorders and problems
  in 1989-90 estimated to be 2 billion (AIHW,
  1996).

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How Is Coaching Relevant to Mental Health?

• Currently an emphasis on both mental health
  promotion and prevention eg In Australia, the
  Second National Mental Health Plan.
• Mental health promotion involves positive
  treatments where the aim is to promote levels of
  well-being or build upon or draw out a persons
  existing strengths (Keyes Lopez 2002) and is
  targeted at the general population
• .

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How Is Coaching Relevant to Mental Health?

• Coaching as a means to increase well-being may be
  useful as a non-medical or assisted self-help
  positive intervention, under the umbrella of
  mental health promotion.
• Thus, research on coaching as a potentially
  useful positive intervention seems warranted.

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Well-Being

• Refers to optimal psychological functioning and
  experience (Ryan Deci, 2001).
• The study of well-being is controversial at this
  time.
• Historically, two distinct perspectives
  Hedonism Eudaimonism.

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Well-Being

• Hedonic view regards well-being as consisting of
  pleasure or happiness traditionally measured as
  Subjective well-being (SWB).
• Eudaimonia view regards well-being as the
  actualisation of human potential and when people
  live in accordance with their core values
  measured as psychological well-being (PWB)

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Hope

• Hope theory involves belief in ones ability to
  initiate and maintain movement towards a goal
  (agency) and to conceptualise routes to a goal
  (pathways).
• It has been found that articulating goals
  immediately triggers agentic pathways thoughts.

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Overview

• Coaching facilitates goal-setting and
  goal-striving.
• Significant evidence to suggest personal goals
  affect well-being.
• Coaching fosters both agentic pathways
  thinking.
• Thus it may be hypothesised that coaching should
  lead to greater hope, goal striving and
  well-being.

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Previous Research

• Grant (2001) utilised a life coaching program
  (Coach Yourself, Grant Greene, 2001) whereby 20
  adults focused on attaining goals that had eluded
  them for 23.5 months.
• His results found that participation in the
  program was associated with significantly
  enhanced mental health, quality of life and
  increased goal attainment.

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Aims

• To further evaluate the effectiveness of a life
  coaching group program to facilitate goal
  striving, well-being, hope and mental health.
• To examine the relationships between goal
  authenticity, hope, goal striving, well-being and
  mental health.

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Hypotheses

• 1. There will be a significant difference between
  the Coaching Group and the Wait-list Group on
  measures of goal striving, well-being and mental
  health.
• 2. There will be a positive and significant
  relationship between authentic goal pursuit and
  goal striving and well-being.
• 3. There will be a positive and significant
  relationship between hope and goal striving and
  well-being.

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Participants

• 56 adults (18 years and over) from a normal,
  non-clinical (healthy) population.
• Advertisements for the Coach Yourself program
  were run via local media

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Participants

• Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) utilised to
  identify healthy members of the community.
• Suitable participants were matched on gender,
  age-range and BSI-range then randomly assigned
  to either the coaching group (experimental
  group/Group 1) or the wait-list (control
  group/Group 2), with 28 participants in each
  group.

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Participants

• 7 males and 21 females in each group.
• Age range 18 60 years
• Majority of participants falling within the 31-40
  and 41-50 age ranges.
• BSI range T score range 33 70
• Majority of participants falling within the 51-60
  T score range.

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Materials

• A group manual was developed based on Coach
  Yourself (Grant Greene, 2001) and Be Your Own
  Life Coach (Grant Cavanagh, 2002).
• Coach Yourself is a structured life coaching
  program based on a solution focused, cognitive
  behavioural model.

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The Coaching Program

• Participants firstly attended a one-day workshop
  whereby the facilitator presented theories and
  techniques in a short lecture-type format.
• Participants were introduced to the major
  theories and techniques of the Coach Yourself
  program eg Transtheoretical theory of change,
  solution-focus, Cognitive behavioural coaching.
• In addition, individual self-reflection exercises
  and small group discussions were utilised.

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The Coaching Program

• Participants initially completed a life inventory
  task to examine the main areas of their lives eg
  work, health, relationships.
• They then selected one specific, measurable goal
  that could be attained or significant progress
  made towards within a 10 week period.
• Participants then met for 9 weekly one-hour group
  sessions in which there was a brief review of
  theory or technique, followed by co-coaching in
  regard to their chosen SMART goal.

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The Coaching Program

• The role of the Facilitator was to facilitate
  this process and help coachees move though the
  self-regulation cycle, monitoring and evaluating
  progress towards their goals during the preceding
  week and developing action plans for the coming
  week.

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SMART goals

• Specific
• Measureable
• Attractive Authentic
• Realistic
• Time-framed

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SMART goals

• To improve physical health as evidenced by 3 x
  week exercise bike and 2 x week swimming.
• To work towards completing my diploma by
  following a specific study schedule.
• To improve self confidence at a level of 8 (on a
  scale of 1 to 10) by initiating conversations
  with new people.
• By 30 September 2002 I will have in place a
  system for setting and achieving goals in my
  thesis

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SMART goals

• By 30 September 2002 I will have reviewed and set
  up a financial budget on the computer for the
  next 12 months.
• By 30 September 2002 I will have in place a plan
  to regularly set aside time for myself to
  increase creativity and fun in my life.
• By 30 September I will have developed and put
  into place a fitness program that supports my
  health and will motivate me sufficiently at a
  level of 9/10.

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Instruments

• Participants completed the following
  questionnaires at Time 1 Time 2
• Personal Goals Questionnaire that incorporates
  questions regarding Personal Strivings (Emmons
  1986), Perceived Locus of Causality (PLOC) (Deci
  Ryan 1985), Commitment, Progress and
  Attainment.
• Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener et al
  1985)
• Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS)
  (Watson et al 1988)
• Scales of Psychological Well-Being (Ryff, 1989)
• Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21)
  (Lovibond Lovibond, 1995)
• The Hope Trait Scale (Snyder 1991)

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Design
Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 10 weeks 20 weeks

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WITHIN SUBJECTS DESIGN Group 1 from Time 1 to
Time 2 to Time 3
Group 1/Coaching Group Runs for 10 weeks
Group 1/Post Coaching Period
BETWEEN-SUBJECTS DESIGN Between Group 1 Group 2
At Time 2
Group 2/Wait-list
Group 2 runs for next 10 weeks
WITHIN SUBJECTS DESIGN Group 1 from Time 1 to
Time 2 to Time 3
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Preliminary ResultsBrief Symptom Inventory

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• 107 potential participants completed the BSI.
• As recommended by the BSI manual, a cutoff score
  of 63 is utilised to identify a positive case ie
  high levels of psychological distress.
• When applying this rule to the current sample,
  52 of people defined as positive cases.
• In order to ensure an adequate sample size, a
  decision was made to increase the cutoff to 70 (2
  sd above mean). This reduced positive cases to
  29.

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Group 1
Group 2

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• Repeated Measures ANOVAs reveal significant group
  x time interaction effects for
• Positive Negative Affect, Psychological
  Well-being (5/6 scales), Hope Goal Striving.
• No significant interaction effects were observed
  for Subjective Well-being, Autonomy (PWB scale),
  Depression, Anxiety Stress Scales.

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Group 1
Group 2

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• Wait-list control group showed no significant
  changes from Time 1 (pre) to Time 2 (post).
• Coaching Group showed significant increases in
• Goal Striving
• Positive Emotions (PANAS)
• Hope agency, pathways and total hope.
• Psychological Well-being 5/6 scales Personal
  Growth, Self-Acceptance, Purpose in Life,
  Positive Relations with Others.

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Group 1
Group 2

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• Coaching Group showed significant decreases in
• Negative Emotions (PANAS)
• Coaching Group showed no significant changes in
• Autonomy (subscale of PWB)
• Depression, Anxiety Stress (DASS)

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Coaching
Group
Significant increases in Positive Affect (PANAS)

•  

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Coaching
Group

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Significant decreases in Negative Affect (PANAS)

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Coachng
Group
Significant increases in Agency and Pathways
(Hope)

•  

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Group 1
Significant increases in Total Hope

•  

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Coaching
Group
Significant increases in Self-Acceptance
Purpose in Life (PWB)

•  

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Coaching
Group
Significant increases in Positive Relations with
Others Environmental Mastery (PWB)

•  

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Initial ResultsPre post results of Group 1
Non-Significant decreases in Depression, Anxiety
Stress

•  

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Further Analyses to Be Completed

• Analyses of Wait-list Control Group as Coaching
  Group.
• Within subjects analyses ie Correlation/Regression
  within Group 1 and Group 2 in regard to goal
  authenticity, hope and hypothesised associations
  with well-being and goal striving.
• Follow-up analyses of Time 4 (30 weeks) Time 5
  (40 weeks).
• Ten qualitative interviews regarding the Coaching
  Program process.

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What Do These Findings Tentatively Suggest So Far?

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• Quantitatively
• Group Coaching is effective in increasing goal
  striving progression, positive emotions and
  psychological well-being and hope. Also
  effective in decreasing negative emotions.
• Qualitatively (ad hoc)
• The Social factor may play an important role ie
  importance of public commitment to change?
• CBT increases self-reflection and insight that
  enables change to occur?

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What Are We Yet to Determine?

• Will these findings be replicated for the
  Wait-list control group as a Coaching Group?
• Whether hope and goal authenticity affect goal
  striving and well-being in a coaching setting.
• What are the important components of the coaching
  process that lead to these significant changes ie
  CBT, social influences?
• Will increases in well-being be maintained ie at
  Time 4 5?

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Qualitative Comments(to be analysed)

• Helped me to focus on what I wanted out of life
  and the process helped me to set out the steps to
  achieve that.
• The personal contract helped me to stay on track.
• The performance enhancing techniques (CBC) were
  the highlight!
• Springboard effects into other areas of my life!
• I now carry through on my intentions!

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Qualitative Comments(to be analysed)

• Helped me to feel better about myself and more
  motivated.
• The solution focus has helped me to move forward
  rather than feel stuck.
• The continuous reinforcement enhanced success.
• Understanding the process of change helped me to
  understand myself.
• A very powerful experience!! Life changing!!!

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Future Research 

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If coaching is shown to be effective in
increasing well-being/positive emotions and
decreasing psychological distress/negative
emotions, then future research could investigate
coaching interventions utilised to enlist or
strengthen such proactive potentials ie building
hope, strategies to build resilience.
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Future Research 

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• Coaching as a means to destigmatise psychology.
• Use of coaching groups for life skills eg
  self-esteem, stress management, emotional
  intelligence.
• Use of coaching post-counselling as a
  prevention strategy.

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Future Research 

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• Use of coaching to teach CBT to general public
  for prevention of depression anxiety.
• Use of phone coaching as a cost-effective way to
  ensure behaviour change maintenance eg stop
  smoking, weight loss, exercise programs.

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Thank you.Any questions? 

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