Date of Award

5-15-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education Sciences

College

College of Education and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Debbie Conner

Second Advisor

Richard Costner

Third Advisor

Chelsey Simmons

Abstract

Instructional coaching is frequently positioned as a central strategy for improving teaching and learning. While existing research has examined the structural ambiguity and relational complexity of the role, less attention has been given to how instructional coaches experience the emotional demands embedded within their work. This interpretive phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of three public school instructional coaches in a single district to better understand how emotional labor operates within instructional coaching. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews and hermeneutic analysis, the study examined how participants described and made meaning of the emotional dimensions of their role.

Findings indicate that emotional labor is not peripheral to instructional coaching but structurally embedded within it. Participants described sustained emotional regulation required to maintain trust, navigate tension between teachers and administrators, and stabilize relationships during instructional change efforts. Emotional labor functioned as invisible infrastructure, enabling the visible work of instructional improvement to occur. The analysis also revealed temporal and embodied dimensions of this labor. Coaches described anticipatory emotional preparation prior to difficult conversations and continued internal processing afterward, resulting in cumulative strain over time. Rather than dramatic episodes of burnout, participants emphasized steady vigilance and gradual emotional erosion.

This study contributes to emotional labor theory by situating it within instructional coaching and extends coaching scholarship by clarifying the affective demands of boundary-spanning practice. Implications for leadership, preparation, and policy emphasize the importance of recognizing and supporting the emotional infrastructure that sustains instructional coaching over time.

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