Coaching New School Principals during Their Professional Integration: Exploring Opportunities for Improvement

Abstract

The general objective of this study is to examine the coaching offered by Québec school boards to new school principals during their professional integration period. More specifically, it aims to study coaches' perceptions of: 1) the positive impacts expected from executive coaching, 2) the factors that facilitate this coaching, and 3) the factors that impede it. The data-gathering tool is a semi-structured interview. A total of 33 coaches from five school boards in the same large region of Québec, Canada were interviewed. This study offers insight into coaches' perceptions regarding the factors that can facilitate or impede the coaching provided to new school principals during their professional integration, factors which can be grouped according to whether they relate more to characteristics of the coaches, characteristics of the coachees, the coach-coachee relationship, or the coach's approach. Determining these factors allows us to identify a number of possible opportunities for improving the coaching offered to new principals. A more in-depth analysis suggests that some parameters of the coaching mechanism might have an impact on the facilitating/impeding factors. More concretely, these parameters correspond, for example, to the coachselection process, the support and training available to coaches, and the recognition given to them.