How academic coaching influences student performance and institutional outcomes

Retention rates at colleges and universities are problematic and have been made worse by the pandemic. The current retention rate of a public, four-year institution is about 76 percent, meaning that for every four students enrolled, one will leave for another institution, or simply leave higher education completely. In an effort to not only enrol but successfully retain and graduate students, US campuses are seeking new approaches to student support, one of which is academic coaching.

Derived from the concepts of life and executive coaching in the business world, academic coaching entered higher education in 2000 after the company Inside Track began offering these services to colleges and universities to increase student success and retention.

This led to schools offering their own in-house coaching services and resources, which, unlike more traditional campus roles (advisers, counsellors, faculty), varied widely because of the lack of framework and ambiguity regarding the role. Over the past two decades, the role of an academic coach has been more clearly defined and the creation of various coaching models and programmes has helped schools create and support the role within their existing student success infrastructure. In general, academic coaches are involved in three areas:

• identifying students who may be academically at risk;
• teaching learning strategies and executive functioning skills (time management, organisation);
• offering remediation support for students who fall below the expected performance standard.

How academic coaching is implemented varies between institutions, but below are some tangible ways the three key objectives above can be met:

At the policy level:

Required remediation policies for foundational courses. That is, if students do not meet certain thresholds for foundational or entry-level courses for the programme in which they are enrolled, those students would be required to participate in some form of remediation. This can be both content-based, probably done by the subject faculty, and/or strategies-based, which would be where an academic coach would work with the student to develop better study skills, test-taking strategies, time management abilities, etc.

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Identifying at risk students based on admissions data. When students self-identify within certain categories upon admission, such as being first-generation college students, or belonging to a traditionally underserved or under-represented group, or having a disability, this can serve as a potential indicator for being in need of additional support through academic coaching.

Creation of programmes specifically geared towards improving students’ academic skills. This is where academic coaches can truly shine and influence the success of many students. Through these programmes academic coaches work with students one-to-one or in a group setting, helping them develop study strategies, test-taking abilities, better time management and organisation, and other skills that are crucial to being a successful college student.

At the individual level:

Ability to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses and recommend strategies to develop their skills through that lens. This involves having crucial conversations with students to find out about their student experience and performance to date, their learning styles and preferences. The coach must look at all that information holistically in terms of the student and their current circumstances and make informed recommendations based this.

Active and engaging skills-building techniques to improve learning and study strategies. Beyond the “study more” or “use a planner” canned recommendations, coaches must be thoughtful, encouraging and engaged with each student and share how the recommendations they are making as a coach could be implemented by the student. It is important to be explicit about how and why it would impact their academic journey positively. Regular check-ins and follow-ups provide academic accountability to the student and thus increase engagement, and by proxy, their future academic success.

Understanding and application of student development theory and providing coaching through that lens. Having knowledge of students’ developmental stages and how that can affect their thinking, understanding and abilities is critical for an academic coach to successfully empathise and build connections with students. Having the appropriate expectations of students, based on their current stage of life, can help an academic coach provide more fruitful insight and guidance.

It is apparent, in both the literature and anecdotes of institutions and their students, that academic coaching delivered using the approaches above can have considerable positive impact on student outcomes. Students who have participated in academic coaching have significant grade point average (GPA) increases, are more likely to earn at least a 2.00 GPA (a C grade) in the intervention semester, and are more likely to remain at the university the following semester compared with those students who have not participated in academic coaching, a 2019 study of 14,000-plus students by Capstick and colleagues found.

The role of an academic coach is distinctive in that the relationship is meant to encompass a holistic approach to an individual student’s needs, strengths, and weaknesses. The coach should then use that information and relationship to create effective skills, practices, and strategies that enable said student to reach their academic goals. The ripple effect of doing this, one student at a time, across hundreds and thousands of students, is how academic coaching influences individual and institutional level outcomes.

Lindsay F. Tierney is a student success coach at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Nursing.

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