Effect of Faculty Development Activities on Dental Hygiene Faculty Perceptions of and Teaching About Motivational Interviewing: A Pilot Study

The aims of this pilot study were to assess dental hygiene faculty members' perceptions of the importance of motivational interviewing (MI) and their confidence in teaching students about MI and to determine the effect of MI training sessions on those perceptions. Participants were a convenience sample of all 16 dental hygiene faculty members who teach in the clinic at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. Participants' perceptions were assessed prior to a workshop in MI (pretest), immediately after the workshop (posttest 1), and eight months after the workshop, at the end of the academic year (posttest 2). During the same period, some of the workshop participants took part in team grading sessions of audio recordings of student-patient MI interactions. The results showed that the majority of the faculty members perceived it was important to personally embrace the overall spirit of MI during patient care, and they were confident supporting students as well. Their ratings for embracing the spirit of MI increased from pretest to posttest 1, but slightly decreased at posttest 2. This trend was also seen in their assessment of the importance of and their confidence in teaching the eight MI strategies over time. Among the workshop participants, 56% were part of team grading; they reported the most helpful professional development activities overall were team grading (58%) and the workshop (25%). These results suggest the importance of making use of a variety of faculty development activities and of introducing appropriate follow-up to training sessions over time to ensure long-lasting effects. Future research using carefully designed, multi-institution, longitudinal studies is needed to determine the most effective ways to prepare dental hygiene faculty members to educate their students about MI.