# Evidence, Sources, and Rights

Use this reference when making efficacy claims, explaining method choice, adding an instrument, or extending the skill. The source base is a structured evidence scan, not a systematic review.

## What the evidence supports

- Controlled workplace and executive-coaching syntheses report positive small-to-moderate average effects, but one major 2023 meta-analysis excluded life coaching and had a prediction interval crossing no effect.
- Direct life-coaching evidence is small, older, heterogeneous, and insufficient for broad population claims.
- Coaching alliance has a moderate association with outcomes; agreement on goals and tasks, trust, and collaboration are substantive, not cosmetic.
- Named scaffolds such as GROW and CLEAR may organize conversation, but comparative evidence does not establish one universal superior sequence.
- Motivational-interviewing-informed skills, mental contrasting, implementation intentions, goal-setting theory, COM-B, habit design, and some strengths work have useful adjacent evidence. Transfer to general life coaching must be stated honestly.
- Autonomous AI coaching has not been shown equivalent to trained human coaching. A frequently cited alliance experiment used hidden expert humans to operate the supposed AI.
- Unwanted effects and dependency deserve monitoring, but available studies do not establish a general prevalence rate.

## Claim rules

1. State the population and setting.
2. Distinguish direct coaching evidence from adjacent evidence and professional standards.
3. Preserve study limits, heterogeneity, and uncertainty.
4. Do not infer that a combined intervention validates each component.
5. Do not turn association into causation.
6. Do not treat a framework taxonomy as an efficacy ranking.
7. Do not claim that a prompt or static eval proves privacy, safety, accessibility, or effectiveness.
8. Recheck current standards and source versions before material revisions.

## Professional and AI-coaching standards

- [ICF Core Competencies](https://coachingfederation.org/credentialing/coaching-competencies/icf-core-competencies/) — current 2025 framework page; use as professional design guidance, not a credential claim.
- [ICF Code of Ethics](https://coachingfederation.org/credentialing/coaching-ethics/icf-code-of-ethics/) — agreements, confidentiality limits, conflicts, credentials, technology, and AI.
- [ICF AI Coaching Framework and Standards](https://coachingfederation.org/resource/icf-artificial-intelligence-ai-coaching-framework-and-standards/) — current public resource page; the reviewed document was v0.16 and described ongoing work. Do not claim final conformance.
- [Global Code of Ethics](https://globalcodeofethics.org/) — cross-professional code covering contracting, independence, data, boundaries, bias, supervision, referral, and evaluation.
- [EMCC Competence Framework](https://www.emccglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/EMCC-competences-framework-v2-EN.pdf) — developmental competence categories.
- [NBHWC Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct](https://nbhwc.org/code-of-ethics-and-professional-conduct/) — health-coaching scope, boundaries, referral, AI disclosure, privacy, sponsors, and records.

## Outcome and process evidence

- [Grover and Furnham 2016](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159137) — organizational-coaching systematic review; positive findings with reporting and mechanism weaknesses.
- [Nicolau et al. 2023](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1089797) — controlled external executive-coaching meta-analysis; overall g=.43, 95% CI [.35, .50], prediction interval [-.05, .92]; excludes life coaching.
- [Cannon-Bowers et al. 2023](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1204166) — workplace-coaching meta-analysis; no detected superiority by broad framework, modality, or dose in a sparse literature.
- [Graßmann et al. 2020](https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718819725) — working-alliance meta-analysis; association with coaching outcomes, r=.41, 95% CI [.34, .48].
- [Grant 2003](https://doi.org/10.2224/SBP.2003.31.3.253) — small uncontrolled life-coaching study.
- [Green, Oades, and Grant 2006](https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760600619849) — small waitlist-controlled group trial combining cognitive-behavioral and solution-focused components.
- [Spence and Grant 2007](https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760701228896) — small exploratory professional-versus-peer life-coaching study with mixed outcomes.
- [Ammentorp et al. 2013](https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-428) — healthcare life-coaching systematic review; five included studies and mixed objective outcomes.
- [Schermuly and Graßmann 2018](https://doi.org/10.1080/17521882.2018.1528621) — review of nine heterogeneous negative-effects studies; monitoring signal, not a prevalence estimate.

## Component evidence

- [Magill et al. 2018](https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000250) and [VanBuskirk and Wetherell 2014](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-013-9527-4) — motivational interviewing process and health evidence; adjacent to general life coaching.
- [Wang et al. 2021](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.565202) — mental contrasting plus implementation-intention meta-analysis; small-to-medium goal-attainment effect.
- [Locke and Latham 2002](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12237980/) — goal-setting theory and its conditions.
- [Michie et al. 2011](https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42) — COM-B framework development; useful diagnostic lens, not coaching-efficacy proof.
- [Singh et al. 2024](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11641623/) — habit-formation review; wide timing variation and high risk of bias in much of the evidence.
- [White et al. 2019](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216588) — positive-psychology reanalysis showing smaller effects after bias correction.
- [Sturt et al. 2012](https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp12X658287) — little evidence for NLP health outcomes.
- [Hook et al. 2021](https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23097) — mixed Enneagram reliability and validity.

## AI-specific limitations

- [Rodway and Schepman 2024/2025](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1364054) used a Wizard-of-Oz design in which expert humans secretly operated the “AI.” It does not validate autonomous AI coaching.
- [Rahsepar-Meadi et al. 2025](https://mental.jmir.org/2025/1/e60432) maps ethical concerns in mental-health conversational AI. Theme frequency in literature is not harm prevalence.
- [Hession et al. 2025](https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2025.1536416) reviews human, AI, and hybrid digital health coaching; heterogeneity prevents strong modality comparison and health coaching is not general life coaching.

## Rights and instruments

The MIT license for this skill does not grant rights to third-party instruments, curricula, or branded worksheets.

Do not bundle, reproduce, digitize, or score:

- VIA Survey or reports;
- ORS/SRS;
- Working Alliance Inventory;
- MBTI, CliftonStrengths, DISC, or proprietary Enneagram tests;
- branded Wheel of Life, WOOP, Co-Active, Immunity to Change, or certification worksheets;
- WHO-5 or SWLS text without separate license and redistribution review;
- clinical screening scales as routine coaching tools.

If a person lawfully supplies results from an external instrument, discuss them tentatively as one input. Do not infer missing scores, certify administration, or treat the result as identity or diagnosis.

All templates shipped with this skill are original and intentionally avoid reproducing instrument items or proprietary curriculum.