Intensive Coaching to Develop Dissertation Proposals of PhD Students in Human Resource Development: An International Program Approach in Thailand

Abstract

Good research is not just about producing the best findings, implications, and recommendations for further research, but providing the best benefits to the participants as well. Thus, the purpose of this Participatory Action Research (PAR) study is to discover the impact that intensive coaching has on supporting PhD candidates in an English-as-a-second language context. Ten PhD students were required to develop their dissertation proposals, and faced the loss of their status, as a University regulation required that all students graduate in not more than seven years. This study applied an Intensive Coaching (IC) technique to support the ten participants. The Intensive Coaching technique was generated from the GROW model (Whitmore, 2009). There were eight phases in achieving the goal: Phase 1 “Open Heart”, Phase 2 “Motivation”, Phase 3 “Building Trust”, Phase 4 “Clarify Topic of Interest”, Phase 5 “Commitment”, Phase 6 “Continue Working in Depth”, Phase 7 “Finalize: Ready to Proceed, and Phase 8 “Goal achievement”. The findings of this study provided helpful information on understanding the challenges that the PhD students faced and overcame, such as improving their conceptual analysis skills, proposal writing skills, group work, self-disciplined learning, and self-confidence.

Key words : Intensive Coaching (IC), Self development, Human Capital, International Programs, Thai educational context