Adult Learners & Next Steps Coaching - A Qualitative Study Exploring Adult Learners’ Experiences with Next Steps Coaching at Tennessee Community Colleges

Oct 15, 2026

A qualitative study examines how adult learners experienced Next Steps coaching at Tennessee community colleges within the Tennessee Coaching Project. The report uses evidence from 72 longitudinal 45-minute student interviews, plus additional qualitative inputs from students who stopped out and focus groups used to clarify interview themes. Findings address outreach timing and message content, coach identification, scheduling support, goal-setting and enrollment barriers, and how external responsibilities shaped what learners shared. Overall, satisfaction with coach-student relationships is widespread despite challenges in courses.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Data Used in This Report

Key Takeaways

Key Finding 1

Adult Learners & Next Steps Coaching A Qualitative Study Exploring Adult Learners’ Experiences with Next Steps Coaching at Tennessee Community Colleges TBR | The College System of Tennessee March 2026 INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, Tennessee has made major investments in supporting adult learners through the establishment of the Tennessee Reconnect grant, which makes attending a community or technical college in the state tuition-free for adult learners. However, adult learners still struggle to persist. Among adult learners who returned to a Tennessee community college after earning college credit in the past, only 58% persisted to the next semester, and just 20% graduated within three years (TBR, 2021) . To address this problem, the Tennessee Coaching Project launched the Next Steps coaching model at two partner community colleges (Jackson and Northeast State Community Colleges) to provide high-touch, holistic, and relational advising for adult learners. TBR, in partnership with Jackson and Northeast, has rigorously evaluated the effectiveness of coaching for adult learners through a randomized control trial. Preliminary quantitative results show modest, but generally positive, impacts of coaching on adult learners’ success (TBR, 2025) . However, questions lingered about how adult learners experience Next Steps coaching. This is the second report in a series focused on adult learners and advising. This second report focuses on the following research question: How did students experience coaching from their Next Steps coaches? DATA USED IN THIS REPORT The data used in this series of reports come from a rigorous qualitative research study leveraging multiple sources of data. In total, the project team conducted over 3,000 minutes of interviews. This includes: • 72 45-minute longitudinal student interviews • Six 45-minute interviews with students who stopped out from college • Four 45-minute focus groups The findings highlighted in this second report of our series leverage data from 72 45-minute longitudinal student interviews the project team conducted with adult learners who were assigned a Next Steps coach as part of the Tennessee Coaching Project. While interviews with adult learners are the primary source of data shared in this report, upon their completion, the project team identified college communication practices and student outreach preferences as areas that merited further exploration. In response, four focus groups were conducted with different groups of participants to clarify or deepen understanding of interview findings and explore student perspectives that may not have emerged in the individual interviews. Focus group insights that aligned with the interview findings and provided additional nuance or divergence or indicated the persistence of some challenges are summarized at the end of relevant themes. An additional section added at the end of the report examines how students perceived and engaged with campus communications. To accurately share the voice and intent of participants, all quotations are reported verbatim except where edits were required to protect the identity and confidentiality of participants or individuals they reference. Edits were limited to anonymizing names by using pseudonyms, removing references to individuals’gender, and generalizing specific life circumstances or experiences. To maintain readability, name and gender changes were not marked with brackets. It is important to note that the interview data used in this report was collected during the 2024-2025 academic year. During this period, the Next Steps Coaching Project experienced significant coach turnover, with several Next Steps coaches from both our partnering colleges receiving internal promotionsand moving on to new positions. As a result, many adult learners selected for coaching during this time were not assigned a coach until several months after they had enrolled in college. This, as docume

FAQs

What research question guides this second report?

How did students experience coaching from their Next Steps coaches?

What data sources are used to support the findings?

The report draws mainly from 72 longitudinal 45-minute student interviews, supplemented by additional interviews and focus groups to clarify and deepen themes.

How did outreach affect learners’ perceptions of coach support?

Outreach timing and message content influenced how learners understood the scope of support their coaches could offer, including how they learned who their coaches were.

Oct 15, 2026

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