The Effects of Peer Coaching on Faculty Development in the Context of Higher Education

Abstract

Faculty development has been one of the major concerns for many educational institutions and organizations across the world. Peer coaching, among others, has been identified as an effective strategy just for that. For instance, Ohio Department of Education has collaborated with the Center for Essential School Reform to engage in intensive teacher development. The present study reports on an investigation into the use of peer coaching for staff development in Sharjah University, one of the leading universities in the Arabian Gulf. Certain qualitative instruments were constructed such as interviews and subjective questionnaires to collect data on the effects of using peer coaching in this University, while quantitative considerations were resorted to in the analysis so as to compliment the findings statistically. The questionnaire was administered in both Arabic and English to participants from different academic departments. It was based on five constructs, namely 1) the helpfulness of the coaching process for the observers, the observerees, 2) the observerees‟ feelings about the possible perpetuation of the coaching program 3)faculty‟s feedback 4) attitudes, and 5) recommendations regarding the process. Five of the respondents who had completed the questionnaire were also involved in semi-structured interviews. The management claimed that peer coaching would contribute to the development of the teachers and thereby enhance their students‟ learning skills. However, the data collected from open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews revealed that the use of peer coaching in the University had limited effects. Analysis of these data depending on certain categories uncovered the reasons for this limitation. This study concludes with recommendations, which could lead to the desired outcomes of peer coaching and consequently enhance student achievement.