TPC-Journal-V3-Issue3

169 The Professional Counselor \Volume 3, Issue 3 More self-assuredness about challenging clients. This theme captured participants’ experiences of an increased sense of self-assurance and comfort when working with clients who are not ready to change (e.g., ambivalent), or who might be considered “difficult” or “hesitant” clients. When describing the benefits of learning counseling skills in the context of MI, almost half the students commented on working with challenging clients with more self-assurance or comfort. For example, one student reflected: “MI allows you to understand that you cannot make someone change and this [rolling] with resistance really helps put the counseling skills to effective use.” Students also expressed they would feel more self-assured working with ambivalent clients in the future. One student noted that “MI has taught me how to work with ambivalence and gave me a whole new set of tools to help initiate change from within the client.” Finally, one student wrote, “I feel I am much more prepared with the skills that will help me when working with hesitant clients.” Uncertainty in applying technique. Almost half of participants expressed a sense of uncertainty in applying techniques learned throughout the course. This uncertainty appeared to be associated with the technical application of the skills that were taught in conjunction with basic counseling skills. One student reflected on the challenges of learning counseling skills in the context of MI: “Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between MI techniques and basic counseling techniques. There was a lot of overlap.” Another student responded, “I had trouble implementing the skills learned in class into the video tapes [assignments]. Some of the practice sessions were awkward.” Another student commented on the technicality of skill use: “For me, knowing exactly when to use the skills and how to use them so it’s a natural flow to things.” Restrictions in applying Motivational Interviewing. Finally, a few students conveyed feelings that the application of MI techniques was somewhat rigid. This rigidity included difficulty in using the techniques in various situations and with a variety of clients as well as combining MI skills with other counseling skills. Although MI was introduced in the counseling skills course to provide a structured approach to practicing basic skills, beginning counseling students typically have had limited exposure to counseling approaches, which may be necessary for students to develop their own counseling style. As one student reflected, “I think it was difficult for me to focus the skills if MI is not being used with a client…kind of rigid in that aspect.” According to another student, “The only suggestion I would make is to incorporate other skills outside of MI.” Finally, one student noted a preference for the skills to be more specific to a school setting: “I would recommend maybe some of the taping sessions to be more school focused.” Discussion In the current study, significant differences were found between participants’ counseling self-efficacy pretests and posttests, suggesting that the counseling skills course that incorporated MI was effective in enhancing students’ beliefs that they can be successful counseling clients. The average point increase on the COSE was 30, which is comparable to the findings of Larson and colleagues (1992), who found that counselor trainees’ COSE scores increased approximately one standard deviation over the course of their clinical practicum experience and had an average point increase of 30.4. Similarly, the posttest scores of participants of the current study were comparable to those found by Urbani et al. (2002), who examined the self-efficacy of 53 students who learned counseling skills through the skilled counselor training model (SCTM; 176.46 compared to 174.42 in the current study). These comparable increases in student self-efficacy lend support to incorporating MI into counseling skill courses. Although there is evidence that participants gained self-efficacy in counseling after learning MI skills in conjunction with basic counseling skills, the qualitative findings suggest that some students were uncertain how to directly apply the MI skills. This self-doubt was particularly expressed when students considered how they might incorporate the skills into sessions with “actual clients” and how to utilize the skills across various