Making sense of coaching through metaphor: a discourse analysis of coaching practice in educational contexts

Coaching is increasingly used in schools as a form of professional learning, yet research has focused predominantly on outcomes and implementation rather than how coaching is understood by educators themselves. This study addresses that gap by examining how educators with experience of giving, receiving, or coordinating coaching conceptualise coaching through metaphor. Qualitative data were drawn from 26 educators working across a range of U.K. school contexts and comprised individual interviews and focus groups. This paper applies a distinct analytic lens, using an inductive metaphor analysis informed by the Metaphor Identification Procedure and a discourse-based approach. Five interacting metaphor systems were identified: movement and development, bounded space, force and imposition, hierarchy and role positioning, and visibility and monitoring. These metaphor systems construct coaching as both developmental and relational, while also revealing tensions between autonomy and constraint, and between support and accountability. The analysis suggests that coaching is not experienced as a discrete intervention but is actively made meaningful through language and shaped by organisational context. The study contributes to coaching research by offering an interpretive account of how coaching was constructed through competing metaphor systems. By foregrounding metaphor, this study extends coaching research by illustrating how educators make sense of coaching and how these conceptualisations may shape its developmental, relational, and evaluative meanings in practice.