Keep calm and graduate: toward a theory of academic coaching to foster student willpower and manage anxiety

Higher education is suffering from a crisis of willpower. Colleges and universities are full of drained college students whose willpower is siphoned away by chronic anxiety and mental fatigue. Academic coaches are positioned to intervene and assist students in developing healthy workflows toward their goals. This study sought to understand the full potential of academic coaching through the analysis of five college students’ experiences with an academic coaching curriculum designed to create an anxiety reducing workflow. Based on these coached students’ experiences, I gained greater insight on the relationship of academic coaching with willpower (self-regulation and self-control), anxiety, executive functioning, and academic goal achievement. The findings of this qualitative action research study illustrated that the academic coaching curriculum positively influenced coached students’ willpower, mental energy, anxiety, and time management. Findings from this study also indicated that students improved their study strategies, self-advocacy behaviors, sleep routines, and they perceived their breaks as more restorative. Further findings found that students perceived that academic coaching helped them achieve their goals, and the students with ADHD perceived that academic coaching helped them better understand their ADHD symptoms. In this study, I explored the process and features of academic coaching and made recommendations about how the academic coaching curriculum used in this study could be integrated into an overall student success strategy.