Stability and change in teachers' goal orientation profiles over time: Managerial coaching behavior as a predictor of profile change

Goal orientation is an important predictor of motivation at work. This study introduces goal orientation profiles in the work domain, evaluates their stability over time and assesses the impact of managerial coaching behavior on change in employees' goal orientation profiles. We hypothesize that coaching managers inspire, facilitate, and guide employees to change towards profiles with relatively high levels of learning goal orientation and performance approach goals, and relatively low levels of performance avoidance goals. We conducted a two-wave study with a one-year time interval among teachers (N = 521) working in Vocational Education and Training institutions in the Netherlands. Latent transition analysis and multinomial regression analyses were applied. Four distinct profiles were identified: success-oriented, diffuse, low-performance, and high-avoidance. Although the majority of the teachers remained in the same goal orientation profile over time (91.2%) a small percentage of the teachers shifted towards the success-oriented goal orientation profile. Facilitative managerial coaching was positively associated with belonging to the success-oriented goal orientation profile while guidance was negatively associated with belonging to the success-oriented goal orientation profile. Moreover, facilitative managerial coaching supported change to the success-oriented profile while guidance and inspirational managerial coaching did not support this transition.