Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal Volume 2 | Page 27

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2018, Vol. 2
Respondents could select more than one answer
to describe their reason for undertaking the
course with: ‘personal interest’ (81%), ‘professional
development’ (67%) and ‘relevant to my work’ (40%)
dominating. This suggests coaches’ motivations are
closely associated with a desire to develop and
improve their coaching practice.
A strong influence on why people take a course is
how they are directed to it and Google Analytics can
help determine this through tracking the URL via
which they arrive at the course opening page. The
majority arrive through three main routes:
• Recommendation via a range of other websites
(46%).
• Through social networks (14%) (e.g. Facebook and
Twitter).
• Through a search engine (31%).
There are two sets of data that signify different
levels of learning engagement. Firstly, the unique
visitors (19,100) to the course in 11 months since
June 2017 indicates high levels of traffic visiting
and browsing the resources and material (unique
visitors refers to the number of distinct individuals
requesting a page(s) from the website). Secondly, an
accurate picture of detailed learner engagement is
the number who have enrolled (n=3,100), thereby
showing interest in completing and obtaining a
digital badge.
Insight into when participants accessed and engaged
with the course was analysed by comparing course
website visit data across two randomly selected
weeks, from the 11-month period since June 2017.
Visit numbers per hour were aggregated for each
day across the two weeks and then an average
number of visitors per hour was calculated for each
day. This analysis revealed a regular rhythm of peak
visitor numbers midweek with comparatively little
traffic at weekends. Equally, early to mid-morning
through to mid-afternoon was the most popular
time of the day for participants to access the course
followed by a smaller peak in the evenings. Figure
1 shows the pattern of visitor numbers for two
representative Wednesdays and Sundays of the
weeks analysed.
Data confirmed three main organisations
recommending the course (UKC, PGA and BC). Both
canoeing and golf participants cited the motivation
of CPD ‘points’ being awarded for completion of the
course. Clearly for some this was a key factor in
taking the course.
Learner engagement
Time of day
Figure 1 Average course website visitor numbers by hour across
weekday (Wednesday) and weekend (Sunday) in mid-December
(2017) and late-April (2018).
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