Exploring psychological capital as enhancer of instructional coaches’ competencies
Research evidence suggested that psychological capital (PsyCap) has been increasingly recognized and positively linked with employee’s productivity. It is a critical factor in motivation, effective cognitive processing and achievement, entailing the positive evaluation of a given situation and th...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/99366/1/FPP%202021%2029%20IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | Research evidence suggested that psychological capital (PsyCap) has been increasingly
recognized and positively linked with employee’s productivity. It is a critical factor in
motivation, effective cognitive processing and achievement, entailing the positive
evaluation of a given situation and the drive to succeed (Peterson et al., 2011). The
existing evidence however is mostly within industrial and business organisation
employee and none, if not little, focus is given towards educational organisation. Thus,
in order to explore PsyCap among educators, specifically instructional coaches (IC), and
to understand how PsyCap is experienced by IC in their practice of instructional
coaching, this study put forward three research questions. They include (1) How do
instructional coaches experience PsyCap in their practice of coaching? (2) What are the
factors that contribute to the development of instructional coaches’ PsyCap? (3) How
does PsyCap help instructional coaches to be competent in their profession? These
questions aimed to determine ways, factors that influence, and how PsyCap is able to
help instructional coaches enhance their coaching competencies.
Phenomenological approach was selected since it was deemed the most appropriate
approach for the study of a phenomenon of this nature. Data were gathered from seven
instructional coaches from six different District Education Offices (DEO) throughout
Malaysia. The participants were selected among those who are KHAS C and DG54 grade
instructional coaches through purposive sampling. The data collection method employed
was mainly in-depth interview with the participants. Each interview was audio-recorded,
transcribed verbatim and analysed. In addition, informal observation was also carried
out. The validity and reliability of the research was ensured by following Yardley’s
Principle of accessing quality for qualitative research: 1) sensitivity to context, 2)
commitment and rigour, 3) transparency and coherence and 4) impact and importance. This includes stating the researcher’s position as well as maintaining audit trail. As
additional measure, this study also took the approach of clarifying researcher’s bias,
member checking, peer debriefing and thick, rich description of the result.
Through the themes emerged, the finding showed ways PsyCap was experienced by the
instructional coaches, factors that contributed to the development of their PsyCap and
how PsyCap helped enhanced their coaching competencies. Extracted from participants’
own words, PsyCap was experienced by the participants through the sense of
responsibility, PsyCap as personal resources and PsyCap and work commitment. The
exploration of factors that contributed to the development of participants’ PsyCap has
brought about supportive working environment, career background as well as
spirituality. Being supplemented with inner psychological resources of PsyCap, the IC
was able to enhance their coaching competencies through role modeling, encourage
others to flourish and build emotional connection with teachers. The study concluded
that PsyCap possessed by the study’s participants were unique to them and have aided
them in their practice of instructional coaching.
This study contributed to the body of knowledge by suggesting potential positive
psychological resources to be included in PsyCap which are spirituality and emotional
intelligence. Both of these resources were deemed to be highly significant to the context
of Malaysian educators. In addition, this study also highlighted the implication for the
instructional coaching practices and policies and future research recommendations
towards understanding PsyCap in other groups within educational organisation. |
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