Can life coaching improve health outcomes?: A systematic review of intervention studies

BACKGROUND: In recent years, coaching has received special attention as a method to improve healthy lifestyle behaviours. The fact that coaching has found its way into healthcare and may provide new ways of engaging the patients and making them accountable for their health, justifies the need for an overview of the evidence regarding coaching interventions used in patient care, the effect of the interventions, and the quality of the studies published. However, in order to provide a clear definition of the coaching interventions selected for this review, we have found it necessary to distinguish between health coaching and life coaching. In this review, we will only focus on the latter method and on that basis assess the health related outcomes of life coaching. METHODS: Intervention studies using quantitative or qualitative methods to evaluate the outcome of the life coach interventions were identified through systematic literature searches in PubMed, Embase, Psycinfo, and CINAHL. The quality of the methodology was independently assessed by three of the authors using a criteria list. RESULTS: A total of 4359 citations were identified in the electronic search and five studies were included; two of them were randomized controlled trials and met all quality criteria. The two studies investigating objective health outcomes (HbA1c) showed mixed but promising results, especially concerning the patient group that usually does not benefit from intensified interventions. CONCLUSION: Because of the very limited number of solid studies, this review can only present tendencies for patient outcomes and a preliminary description of an effective life coaching intervention. The coaching method used in these studies aims to improve self-efficacy and self-empowerment. This may explain why the studies including disadvantaged patients showed the most convincing results. The findings also indicate that some patients benefit from being met with an alternative approach and a different type of communication than they are used to from health care personnel. In order to get a closer look at what is in the ‘black box’, we suggest that the description and categorisation of the coaching methods are described more comprehensively, and that research into this area is supplemented by a more qualitative approach

The Use of Videos in Teaching - Some Experiences From the University of Copenhagen

This paper covers videos created and used in different learning patterns. The videos are grouped according to the teaching or learning activities in which they are used. One group of videos are used by the teacher for one-way communication, including: online lectures, experts interacting with one another, instruction videos and introduction videos. Further videos are teacher-student interactive videos, including: feedback on student deliveries, student productions and interactive videos. Examples from different courses at different faculties at The University of Copenhagen of different types of videos (screencasts, pencasts and different kinds of camera recordings, from quick-and-dirty videos made by teachers at their own computer to professionally produced studio recordings) as well as audio files are presented with links, as an empirical basis for the discussion. The paper is very practically oriented and looks at e.g. which course design and teaching situation is suitable for which type of video; at which point is an audio file preferable to a video file; and how to produce videos easily and without specialized equipment, if you don’t have access to (or time for) professional assistance. In the article, we also point out how a small amount of tips & tricks regarding planning, design and presentation technique can improve recordings made by teachers themselves. We argue that the way to work with audio and video is to start by analyzing the pedagogical needs, in this way adapting the type and use of audio and video to the pedagogical context