Create an imagined transcript of a motivational interview

April 30, 2020

Create an imagined transcript of a motivational interview

A challenging experience working in schools can be seeing students who are more motivated to skip doing their work than to put forth the effort necessary to succeed. How can you help a student who is not interested in school?

Think of a student in any grade, K–12, who is disengaged. Academically, the student is capable, but there is little desire for this student to do well in school.

Using the articles from this unit’s reading as a guide, create an imagined transcript of a motivational interview. You get to determine what level of change your student is in. For example, if you have a precontemplative 12th grader, be prepared to roll with the resistance and show that you are okay when the student decides not to be successful enough to graduate (believe us, this will happen in real life). Or perhaps you have a fifth grader who just needed to think through consequences of their choices and is in maintenance.

Explore change talk and the key elements of motivational interviewing.

Be encouraged to brag a little here, and imagine that you are the best motivational interviewer in the nation—nay—the world. Really show us what you can do with this unmotivated student to get them back on track, making sure it is really coming from the student’s own desire, not your pressure.

Theory to Practice

Readings

Use the Internet to complete the following:

Read Eakin and Biles’s 2013 blog post, “Building Motivation From Within [PDF].”

Read Gold and Kokotailo’s 2007 article, “Motivational Interviewing Strategies to Facilitate Adolescent Behavior Change,” from Adolescent Health Update, volume 20, issue 1, pages 1–10.

Read Lambie and Sias’s 2004 article, “Motivational Enhancement Therapy: An Effective Approach for Counseling Unmotivated Adolescents.”