Distinctions in practice within coaching in Scotland

Abstract

This research sought to identify distinctions in the practice of coaches within Scotland. A survey design was adopted, with a snowball sampling strategy generating 74 responses. The data from coaches within Scotland, compared with that from respondents in other European nations, suggest that: a greater proportion of the Scottish coaching community are male, that coaches commonly evaluate at the end of every meeting and also seek feedback from commissioning managers as well as clients, that there are numerous approaches to coaching and also to continuous professional development that are less widely adopted in Scotland, that the reputation of the coaching provider is often an important factor for those commissioning coaching and that there are preferences for certain coaching models when presented with particular client issues. Recommendations are made for future analytical research to identify causal factors for any phenomena that can be cautiously determined from this data set.