Training Emerging Psychologists as Multi-cultural Contextual Coaches

Abstract

Research on the education, professional training and tuition models of emerging psychologists (or ‘student psychologists’) has significantly increased during the past two to three decades (Johnson WB, Kaslow N (eds). The Oxford handbook of education and training in professional psychology. Oxford University Press, New York, 2014). Various evidence-based, practitioner-scholar-, clinical-scientist- and science-practitioner models have been developed to aid in the professional training of emerging psychologists (Bell D, Hausman EM. 3 training models in professional psychology doctoral programs. The Oxford handbook of education and training in professional psychology. Oxford University Press, New York, 2014) in order to develop competence in different practice domains such as counselling/therapy (Smith EJ. Couns Psychol 34(2):13–80, 2006), psychometric evaluation (Theron C. SA J Ind Psychol 33(1):102–117, 2007), forensic analysis (Neal TM, Brodsky SL. J Forensic Psychol Pract 14:24–44, 2014) and coaching psychology (Biswas-Diener R, Dean B. Positive psychology coaching: putting the science of happiness to work for your clients. Wiley, Hoboken, 2007). Coaching psychology has emerged as a rapidly growing practice domain (Passmore J (ed). Diversity in coaching: working with gender, culture, race and age. Kogan Page Publishers, New York, 2013) in both uni- and multi-cultural contexts (Palmer S, Whybrow A (eds). Handbook of coaching psychology: a guide for practitioners. Routledge, London), however limited scientific research exists relating to the training and development of emerging psychologists as coaches within multi-cultural environments. As such, the chapter aims to evaluate the experiences of emerging psychologists relating to an evidence-based training methodology in order to provide structured guidelines for the development of a multi-cultural coaching training programme. Through the use of an evidence-based research methodology and thematic content analysis, the chapter will present the specific strategies employed and methodologies utilized in the development of multi-cultural coaching competence of emerging psychologists as part of their formal academic training. The research method, data analysis and results will be presented followed by recommendations that flowed from the study.