What constitutes evidence-based coaching? A two-by-two framework for distinguishing strong from weak evidence for coaching

There has been an almost exponential growth in the amount of coaching-specific and coaching-related research over the past ten years. At the same time there has been considerable interest in the development of evidence-based approaches to coaching, and many coaching practitioners have incorporated the phrase into their terms of reference for their practice. However, these is still a lack of clarity about what constitutes evidence-based coaching, and there have been few, if any, published guidelines about how to determine the relevance of different bodies of research to coaching practice. This article discusses the nature of evidence-based practice as it relates to coaching and then presents a two-by-two framework that highlights the relevance of a broad range of research to evidence-based coaching practice. The aim of this paper is to help further develop a more nuanced view of evidence-based approaches to coaching practice.