“She was almost like an older sister”: PhD students’ perceptions of a coaching program and implications for institutions

Abstract

Doctoral training has traditionally been delivered primarily in one-to-one mode, but as the PhD learning ecology has expanded beyond the supervisory space (Lum & Mowbray, 2024), one-to-one coaching has emerged as a promising intervention for developing PhD students’ personal and professional skills, such as self-management, self-efficacy, resilience, and confidence to complete. While some researchers recommend embedding coaching within supervision (McCarthy, 2012; Wilson & James, 2022), others emphasise the benefits of external coaches (Godskesen & Kobayashi, 2016; Lech et al., 2022). Yet how PhD students perceive external coaches, how “external” coaches need to be, and whether such resource-intensive programs can be made feasible for institutions have not been explored. We report on a 12-week PhD Coaching Program which offered research students one-to-one sessions with PhD-holding, professional (non-faculty) staff. Reporting on their experiences in surveys and interviews, coachees’ perceptions of their coaches and the coaching sessions suggest that a contained period of individualised coaching by these staff can effectively complement supervision. Coachees commented on the personalised holistic support, likening it to that provided by a mentor, counsellor, tutor or sibling. That the coach was external to the student’s enrolling department contributed to a flattened hierarchy and fostered a safe environment to share struggles, while their holding of a PhD lent credibility to their support. Universities’ PhD-qualified, professional staff represent a unique and sustainable source of coaches, whose academic and professional experience within and beyond academia can be leveraged to support the next generation of researchers in the form of one-to-one coaching.