Characteristics of Academic Coaches in an Online RN-to-BSN Program

Background: To achieve the growth of RN-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs in the face of ongoing faculty shortages, many large online RN-to-BSN programs have embraced the use of academic coaches to assist with course delivery. Method: An associational analysis of data collected from academic coaches and their student and faculty evaluators was performed on a sample of academic coaches who were teaching students enrolled in a large online RN-to-BSN program. Results: The multilevel data consisted of 94 coaches who taught in 166 courses. Evaluation data from 12,004 students were captured and connected to each academic coach and course. Overall, the RN-to-BSN coaches received favorable ratings by both instructors and students alike. Conclusion: The use of academic coaches can help to expand capacity while delivering a high-quality educational experience. These results indicate that satisfaction with academic coaches has the potential to be very high, from both the students' and the faculty members' perspectives.