The way in which learner drivers are taught has evolved over the years. Whereas once pupils were literally instructed, this was a fairly one-way street, and not necessarily very engaging for the pupil.

Now, it’s generally accepted that coaching is a preferable approach for teaching pupils, which enables a more two-way process, and is more engaging for the pupil. But what is coaching exactly, and why is it considered a more effective teaching method? Here we’ll take a closer look.

What is coaching?

Coaching is a modern method of teaching. It goes beyond mere instruction, and empowers the pupil to become their own teacher.

HERMES, a three-year EU-funded project looking at how coaching could be used in driver education, used this definition:

“Coaching is a pupil-centred approach that engages body, mind, and emotions to develop inner and outer awareness and responsibility through an equal relationship between the pupil and coach.”

There’s a lot to unpack in this sentence, so let’s break it down.

What does pupil-centred mean?

Pupil-centred is about placing the pupil at the centre of the learning process.

This is key to coaching as a whole. It goes beyond simply structuring or developing a set of lessons for a pupil’s specific needs. It focuses on making the pupil their own teacher, through the development of their own self-evaluation skills.

An equal relationship between the pupil and coach

The role of coaching was explored by Ian Edwards in his book ‘Can Drivers Really Teach Themselves?’

According to Edwards:

“This is the most vital element of coaching. The relationship should be one of equals where the pupil and coach work closely together. The aim of the coach should be to help the pupil learn through the reduction and removal of learning barriers. These barriers include previous knowledge, which can lead to resistance, and anxiety.”¹

Resistance

What’s meant by ‘resistance’ here? Well, we start to learn about traffic from an early age. During childhood, we experience being driven, watching traffic, and developing ideas about what acceptable driving behaviour is – or isn’t.

By the time we learn to drive, we’ve cultivated numerous assumptions about what good driving is, and what constitutes good driving behaviour. These assumptions may be hidden from others, but are likely to influence the way that we interpret the driving environment.

So this picture of a good driver may have been influenced by:

• How our parents drove, and dealt with traffic as pedestrians
• Being a passenger in a vehicle
• Our own experience of being a pedestrian
• The view we believe that’s advocated by our peer group
• The influence of media, TV, films etc
• Personal beliefs about how to behave – both on the road and in our lives generally

According to Edwards: “This previous knowledge and experience means that everything we are told about driving will be filtered or interpreted against and through this personal picture of a good driver. This interpretation will mean that many of the messages delivered by an instructor will be seen as unimportant, re-constructed or even irrelevant."

“Of course this is a very negative view of previous knowledge. It can also be very positive as not all previous knowledge will be poor or in conflict with safe driving. The challenge for the instructor is to help the pupil to understand how this previous knowledge can influence behaviour and their own strengths and weaknesses.”

Problems with anxiety

During the learning process, we may have internalised questions which interfere with our ability to learn. These may be negative, and raise our anxiety levels. The more anxious we become, the more difficult we find it to learn.

Anxiety-inducing questions could include:

• Will I be successful?
• Does my instructor think I’m stupid?
• Can I do this?
• Will learning this be worthwhile?
• Am I making progress?
• Will I crash the car?
• This is dangerous… So could I die?
• Are my friends better at this than me?
• Why do I never find learning things easy?
• If I drive like this, how will my peers view me?

These questions can increase our concerns or distract us, building barriers to success. Fixating on these questions may mean we struggle to listen, or focus on the information coming our way.

The coach should be non-judgemental

How does this all translate into effective teaching methods? Firstly, in order to limit anxiety, the coach needs to be non-judgemental. This is one of the most critical elements of the coach/pupil relationship.

It’s also vitally important in reducing resistance – the other barrier to learning. As discussed, this resistance comes from the conflict between the pupil’s internal picture of a good driver and the new information being presented.

Building a strong non-judgemental relationship with a pupil will help them explore these conflicts in a more relaxed and constructive environment. This is preferable to the pupil keeping this information to themselves.

Developing the pupil’s problem-solving skills

According to Edwards:

“Driving is all about problem solving, related to ‘how do I drive from A to B safely?’ However, there are lots of sub-problems to solve along the way. It is therefore one of the primary roles of a coach to help a pupil to develop their problem-solving skills. To do this the coach needs to present the pupil with a problem to solve or ideally help the pupil to identify their own problem to solve.”

The role of awareness and responsibility

In more recent years, modern methods of teaching have placed greater importance on the development of the pupil’s ability to evaluate their own performance.

“One of the main aims of coaching is to increase a pupil’s level of awareness and responsibility, and the development of self-evaluation skills.”

For a pupil to be fully self-aware, it’s not enough to just be aware of their own actions. They should also have awareness of the physical and emotional states which influence decision making. As such, an instructor should encourage the pupil to attain this level of reflection.

In conclusion, coaching techniques are nowadays considered more effective than the old-fashioned style of instruction. Rather than simply being told what to do, this approach empowers the pupil to question why they approach problems in the way they do. The deeper understanding gathered from this process of self-analysis will hopefully better equip them for a lifetime of safe, thoughtful driving.

Top tip: Another way to encourage pupils to reflect is to use a dash cam, and ask them to review their own driving. Find out more about using dash cams as a learning tool here.