While a majority of this applies to international students and migrant residents from non Caucasian ethnic backgrounds, it raises concern for the future of engineering practice given that a significant percentage of engineers who work in industry are from a foreign background, with an increasing percentage graduating from engineering programs offered within Australia [4]. The Australian education system, especially the universities, have been responsible for building the nation’s third largest export industry over the last two decades with one quarter of the higher education students coming from other countries, especially Asia, making an enormous contribution towards the economy [6].
Aware of this gap between education and practice, there have been attempts to model engineering practice by incorporating nontechnical skills with the recommendation that engineering educators develop curriculum that incorporate these skills [7].
The coaching approach to learning and development is increasingly growing in popularity and effectiveness in workplaces due to its self-directed approach to taking action. The International Coach Federation defines coaching as
partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential [8].
Coaching has been shown effective in delivering effective learning outcomes at tertiary level [9] assisting students as well as staff [10, 11]
As a relatively new field, coaching is a methodology that draws on a range of other more traditional professions including psychology, business consulting, mentoring management theory and adult learning. However, coaching is a unique field and there are significant differences between coaching and these fields. Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has. Given this approach to learning and development, we believe the coaching approach may hold the key to bridging the gap between education and practice and help develop better rounded graduates.
This paper describes a pilot coaching program that is being developed to be implemented among Higher Degree Research (HDR) students in Engineering and Technology disciplines, at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), to better facilitate holistic success of the research student. We aim to report the results of this study, its measurable outcomes and lessons learnt once the study has been completed as well as the applicability of the coaching style approach to learning and supervision in higher degree research in engineering and technology.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Introduction
The pilot coaching program will be conducted among 20 Engineering PhD research students from the Faculty of Science and Engineering (SEF) at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The cohort chosen will be a mixture of males and females, from years 1-4 in the PhD program and from differing cultural backgrounds, representing the diversity of the faculty. Participation in the program will be on a voluntary basis, with the written consent from the respective supervisors, who also participate in the program in order to support and assess the students at critical stages in the program. The program consists of a 9-Step process and the participants are expected to cover all 9 steps, each step building on the other and fulfil the basic competency criteria in order to successfully complete the program. Evaluation of success will be made on the basis of personal and academic goals set by the participants in consultation with their supervisors for the latter. Additionally, the program will aim to meet competencies of stage-1 under professional and personal attributes of an engineer, stipulated by the Institute of Engineers, Australia, the governing professional body, responsible for engineering practice in Australia [12].
B. The Coaching Model and Program
The coaching program was created around a professional coaching model called P3-GROWTHS [13] that espouses the values of experiential and life-long learning and draws on the principles of biological or natural growth as seen in nature, (Fig. 1). Growth is seen to occur in 3 progressive stages as captured by the P3’s termed presence, purpose and partnerships represented by the 3 rings. This is similar to how a seed germinates and anchors to the soil (presence), develops a shoot system that promotes vertical growth (purpose) and develops leaves and branches that helps spread out (partnerships) that result in the tree bearing fruit. Presence is seen as the quality that helps people connect with themselves through self-awareness and with others that promotes trust, the essential quality for the flourishing of any relationship. Purpose is seen as the clear ability to be self-decisive, to plan and set goals towards a clear purpose that results in change and growth. Partnerships is the extent of one’s ability to form a supporting structure and gather resources in order to achieve the set purpose or goals. The 3P’s, presence, purpose and partnerships essentially define the depth, height and breadth of all relationships respectively.
Figure 1 P3-GROWTHS Model reproduced with permission from Full Life Coaching®
Holistic growth is seen as the extent to which a person can develop in all three dimensions. The P3-GROWTHS model is developed to essentially capture the uniqueness of the individual and promote ‘structural growth’ as it relates to an increase individual capacity and ‘functional growth as it relates to the quality and diversity of a person’s interactions with the outside world. The process of coaching a person towards growth and development by moving towards specific goals is captured in the acronym GROWTHS. Each coaching success is seen as a seed for promoting growth in another area of the person’s life or passing on to another individual through mentoring or coaching, in the true spirit of sustainability. The role of the educator or coach in this regard is to help develop the individual towards their fullest
potential, providing the support structure and the ingredients for growth be it knowledge, resources or opportunities.
The 9 steps program,(Fig. 2) is developed in order to capture the essence of the 3 growth factors of Presence, Purpose and Partnerships as it relates to 3 different levels of relationships; I (with oneself), YOU (with another) and WE (with a group or audience).
Figure 2 The P3-GROWTHS Coaching Program©
The pilot program will run for 12 months and in two stages of 6 month duration.12 monthly workshops will be conducted aimed at developing specific skills and competencies ranging from developing self-awareness to
self-management and self-leadership, developing a vision and a life purpose to effective goal setting, developing a
personal brand, peer mentoring, leadership, life-long learning, sustainability, innovation and creativity, handling
diversity and responding to conflict, communication skills specifically listening skills, the art of connecting, team
dynamics and leaving a legacy. The workshops will be supplemented with periodically scheduled one-on one
coaching by an experienced coach and through a series of peer coaching sessions, where participants will coach each other. The individual sessions with an experienced coach will help bring focus on the specific goals of the student and make the program personalized to their needs, in addition to the skills developed through the workshop activities.