Theses and Dissertations from DePaul University

Date of Award

Spring 2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

College

College of Science and Health

First Advisor

Shelly Rauvola

Abstract

Coaching research has largely focused on the coach or manager, with less attention given to the coachability of those receiving feedback (Shannahan et al., 2013b). However, individuals who receive coaching (i.e., coachees) are active participants in the coaching process and can improve or undermine the effectiveness of these practices (Gregory & Levy, 2010; London & Smither, 2002). Although coachability has been examined at the individual level, it has not been directly examined in team settings despite the centrality of teams to modern work (Bisbey & Salas, 2019; Mathieu et al., 2017). This dissertation developed and validated a new measure of team coachability, defined as a team-level feedback process through which members seek, openly receive, align on, and integrate feedback while maintaining positive relationships with one another and feedback providers to improve team functioning. Using a multi-phase, quantitative scale development design, this study gathered multiple sources of validity evidence for the team coachability measure across content validation, factor-analytic refinement, replication, and relationships with theoretically relevant constructs. Validation evidence supported a final 19-item measure comprising three interrelated dimensions: feedback seeking, feedback receptivity, and feedback integration. Team coachability was positively related to positive affect, team trust, information sharing, and aggregated individual coachability, and demonstrated evidence of distinction from information sharing and aggregated individual coachability. Support for team performance prediction was limited. Overall, the findings provide initial evidence that team coachability can be examined as a distinct team-level construct rather than a simple aggregation of individual-level coachability, and they offer a foundation for future research on collective feedback processes in teams.

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