Motivational interviewing for students in school settings: A meta-analysis

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a brief counseling intervention with demonstrated efficacy in ameliorating unhealthy habits across populations, behaviors, and settings. Although prior research underscores its benefit with adolescents, a comprehensive examination of its application in school settings remains unexplored. Therefore, the primary aim of the present meta-analysis was to calculate the average estimated effect of all studies examining the use of MI with students in school settings. Second, we sought to examine heterogeneity in effects through meta-regression models. Our final model included a meta-analysis of 38 studies with 207 effect sizes evaluating the efficacy of school-based MI. We estimated multivariate models using robust variance estimation with and without outliers. Our results demonstrate a significant estimated effect in favor of using MI to treat an array of behaviors (g = 0.18, 95% Prediction Interval [−0.26, 0.61]). Findings from the meta-regression analyses indicated three significant moderators: (a) the role of the interventionist, (b) target behaviors, and (c) dosage. We offer potential explanations of the findings and discuss current limitations and implications for future work regarding MI in school settings.