Coaching as support for postgraduate students: A case study

SA Journal of Human Resource Management

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Coaching as support for postgraduate students: A case study
 
Creator Le Roux, Ingrid
 
Subject coaching; higher education coaching; support; higher education; interrole conflict; postgraduate students
Description Background: Undergraduate students as a group are well researched, with focus on enhancing student engagement and improving learning and teaching methods. However, working postgraduate students have become a growing trend in the higher education sector, with little known about their experience. The purpose of this research is to better understand and to gain insight into the inter-role conflict experienced by postgraduate students owing to managing the multiple roles of work, personal life and studies. This article reports the case study of a coaching intervention administered to a group of postgraduate students over a 5-month period. The study concludes that the inclusion of a coaching intervention to assist postgraduate students in dealing with inter-role stress can no longer be ignored. Coaching support is an authentic way to support these students, with benefits reaching beyond the classroom.Research purpose: The purpose of this research is to better understand the inter-role conflict emanating from managing work, personal life and studies, and to gain insight into the role of coaching as a support function.Motivation for the study: There is limited research focusing on the experiences of postgraduate students, who are often working either part-time or full-time while pursuing their studies, and navigating three overlapping role domains simultaneously. Furthermore, even less is known about coaching as a support function to strike a balance between these three demanding roles.Research design, approach and method: This study is qualitative in nature. A coaching intervention over a 5-month period was used to assist postgraduate students in managing inter-role conflict.Main findings: The study suggests that coaching can be used as a method to address the interface between work, personal life and study demands for the working postgraduate student. To ensure successful throughput rates in the allocated time, a new support framework is required to complement the often insufficient academic interventions.Contribution: The contribution of the research is twofold: Firstly, it focuses on working postgraduate students to gain insight into and a better understanding of the potential of coaching. Secondly, it highlights coaching as a potential support function. Very little research exists in the general literature on how to support working postgraduate students in higher education. The research also shows the potential of coaching as a support function to help postgraduate students navigate the three demanding role domains.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor N/A
Date 2018-05-07
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative approach using coaching sessions to collect data
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajhrm.v16i0.939
 
Source SA Journal of Human Resource Management; Vol 16 (2018); 7 pages 2071-078X 1683-7584
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajhrm.co.za/index.php/sajhrm/article/view/939/1433 https://sajhrm.co.za/index.php/sajhrm/article/view/939/1432 https://sajhrm.co.za/index.php/sajhrm/article/view/939/1434 https://sajhrm.co.za/index.php/sajhrm/article/view/939/1422
 
Coverage — — unmarried; post graduate students; 22-26 years old; South Africans (7); Ungadees (1); Mosambique (1); Tanzania (1)
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Ingrid Le Roux https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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