How Coaching Influences Teachers' Beliefs and Students' Self-Regulated Learning in High School English Classes
216M007 M. I.
Our current society is experiencing a time of drastic change in education throughout the world so proactive and cooperative learning and teaching methods, i.e., "active learning," need to be improved. Domestically, Japan is going through a series of reforms surrounding entrance examinations for both high school and University. In short, it is the time that we should recognize whom the lessons are for and how teachers should be teaching them.
Under this situation, I have met teachers who wish to support the students not just as teachers, but also as coaches. Their lessons using coaching skills seem to have impacts on their students, with the teachers acting as motivators as well as supporters. Coaching might be a key in our upcoming situation.
However, there is little academic analysis for coaching because it is considered practical knowledge rather than a scholarly resource. Thus, this thesis aims to define what coaching is and how it is done, and to use quantitative research to explore what influences coaching has on teachers' beliefs and high school students' academic achievement.
This thesis is divided into two chapters. The first is for background, which offers definitions and previous research on coaching and self-regulated learning theory. The second is for research, and has three studies: 1) How does coaching influence teachers when they learn it?; 2) How does coaching influence students' viewpoints in English lessons in a high school?; and 3) How does the coaching sequence influence students' academic achievements of English for the first grade students in a high school? From the first study, it is possible to grasp the general influence of coaching on teachers' beliefs. The second and third studies reveal how coaching works especially in English lessons in a high school.
The findings of this thesis illustrate the key role of coaching in three ways: 1) teachers come to have student-centered beliefs when they learn coaching; 2) students feel rapport with teachers who have been trained as a coach and they change their learning by using reflection sheets and following the sequence of coaching; 3) the coaching sequence helps to prevent lowering students' motivation and improves their quality of learning. This shows that coaching is an effective methodology in education.