Training vs Coaching: What's the Difference?

There's been a lot of confusion regarding the difference between a trainer and a coach, or training and coaching. I'd argue that coaches can engage in training, and trainers can engage in coaching. It's not about titles, but function. Take a look at the excerpt below from Deliberate Coaching: A Toolbox for Accelerating Teacher Performance (Gavoni & Weatherly, 2019) Whether it be sport, education, business, or any industry, the principles below are easily generalizable.

Training

Training is commonly understood as a process intended to develop competency of a defined population for a specific purpose. BusinessDictionary.com defines it as “Organized activity aimed at imparting information and/or instructions to improve the recipient’s performance or to help him or her attain a required level of knowledge or skill.”

In general, training is an approach that occurs over an allotted time period, in a designated area or areas. It focuses on what needs to be done and why it needs to be done, and it involves strategies like instruction, modeling, and rehearsal to meet a standard of proficiency. From a functional perspective, training is skill-oriented and functions as a means of helping a performer develop a skill until it can be demonstrated proficiently and independently.

For example, if a teacher is learning the theory and techniques for asking rigorous questions, she might receive training during a professional-development day in their school’s designated training area. The teacher’s goal is to acquire the knowledge and skills to correctly ask rigorous questions within the classroom. Under these conditions the trainer might explain the theory behind rigorous questions and academic achievement, model how to ask questions, and require participants to practice by asking questions with a partner as they are provided feedback. Ideally, this occurs until the teacher is able to perform the task independently. Once this happens, the teacher is ready to be coached. But what is coaching from a functional perspective, and when is it appropriate?

Coaching

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2011), the term coaching refers to “the process of training somebody to play a sport, to do a job better or to improve a skill.” In the business world, it’s been a described as “a training method in which a more experienced or skilled individual provides an employee with advice and guidance intended to help develop the individual’s skills, performance, and career” (Society for Human Resource Management, 2017).

If these definitions sound similar to those we shared regarding mentoring and training, it’s because they are. This is part of the problem. As you can see, coaching is often conflated with concepts associated with training (e.g., skill acquisition) and mentoring (e.g., career development). While these definitions and descriptions aren’t bad, they muddy the water.

While training helps develop skills, coaching as we define it involves time-based, task-oriented behaviors which function to transfer a performer’s previously acquired skills into the natural environment. In other words, coaching picks up where training leaves off. When successful, it results in sustainable performance and achievement of targeted outcomes. As such, its time scale can be far shorter than that of mentoring.

Coaching can come in different packages depending on the conditions and the needs of the performer. For example, it might include immediate feedback, video feedback, written feedback, modeling, measurement, and so on.

Where training and mentoring tend to occur in sterile environments outside the natural setting, coaching can occur under both simulated (outside the natural setting) or in-vivo (live) conditions as part of the transference process. From a behavioral perspective, coaching should focus primarily on successfully applying skills within the work environment and helping performers get in contact with naturally occurring positive reinforcement through feedback and measurement. For example, it might help a teacher to see that students are learning more, students are misbehaving less, or the job has become easier. This will increase the likelihood the teacher will use this skill in the future. However, if a performer does not yet possess the prerequisite skills required to complete the task that would get them in touch with naturally occurring positive reinforcement, then coaching isn’t the appropriate intervention—training is.

For more strategies for improving performance and outcomes rooted in the science of human behavior, check out this video by Brett DiNovi & Associates!

Reference

Gavoni, P., & Weatherly, N., (2019). Deliberate coaching: A toolbox for accelerating teacher performance. West Palm Beach, FL: Learning Sciences International