Marriage Coaching Effectiveness Study

Marriage coaching is a relatively new approach to working with couples who want to enrich their marriage or are experiencing significant difficulties.  This study of marriage coaching effectiveness was conducted as a research project for Warner Pacific College in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science in Management and Organizational Leadership.  The  Marriage Coaching Effectiveness Thesis 101811 document is a two page summary of the results.  The astract for the thesis follows:

The institution of marriage has come under attack with devastating social and economic consequences. Fewer people are getting married and those that do are seeking divorce with alarming frequency. Marriage counseling has been an option in the past, but a 1995 study by Consumer Reports determined that marriage counseling was not very effective. It is time for change. A relatively new intervention technique, marriage coaching, was studied to compare its effectiveness with counseling. A survey was administered to 39 people who had experience with either marriage counseling or marriage coaching to determine their satisfaction with the services received. The hypothesis tested whether clients who work with trained marriage coaches experience greater positive impact in their lives than clients who participate in counseling. Positive impact was measured by six factors:
       (1) greater client satisfaction in their marriage relationship;
       (2) less financial investment in coaching;
       (3) greater time invested in coaching;
       (4) greater value received from coaching;
       (5) fewer relationships ending in divorce; and
       (6) the internalization of transferable relationship skills.
According to all six criteria, the research showed that marriage coaching by trained coaches is more effective than counseling. A recommendation was made to follow a systematic, team-based approach to coaching similar to the model developed by MarriageTeam. The MarriageTeam model consists of 8-12 sessions focused on teaching and practicing relationship skills such as: communication (both active listening and speaking effectively), anger management, forgiveness, conflict resolution, problem solving, and expressing intimacy. Recommendations were also shared to improve future studies.
Keywords: Coaching, Counseling, Divorce, Forgiveness, Marriage, Mentoring, Reconciliation