A qualitative study of pre-service teachers’ experienced benefits and concerns of using motivational interaction in practice after a training course

Teacher interaction style affects students’ motivation, well-being, engagement, and physical activity. Despite evidence supporting motivational interaction approaches, trainees often fail to achieve or apply the skills after training. Motivational interaction in this study synthesizes self-determination theory (SDT) and motivational interviewing (MI), as implemented in the Let’s Move It (LMI) trial. SDT emphasizes supporting autonomy, competence, and relatedness to foster autonomous motivation; MI emphasizes collaboration, acceptance, evocation, and compassion with core skills such as open questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summaries. Prior research suggests that some motivational strategies (e.g., autonomy support, offering choice) are challenging to adopt, and that practice opportunities and feedback are essential. This study investigates what benefits and concerns pre-service PE teachers experience when trying to adopt motivational interaction and use its specific techniques after completing a 16-hour university course.

Prior literature shows that need-supportive teaching increases student motivation and PA-related outcomes, while MI interventions outperform standard counseling for health behaviors including PA. In schools, MI is increasingly applied and aligns with pedagogical practice, yet MI/SDT skill uptake is often incomplete or not sustained without ongoing support. Teachers are generally more familiar with structuring strategies (e.g., help and positive feedback) than autonomy support (e.g., offering meaningful choice). Challenges reported include time constraints, group-class structures, initiating one-to-one conversations, phrasing need-supportive instructions, and breaking old habits. Research highlights that training should include practice and feedback to translate theory to practice. Within education contexts, most prior implementation studies concern in-service teachers; training pre-service teachers is crucial since habits are still forming. The Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA) offers a lens to understand how perceptions of affective attitude, burden, ethicality, intervention coherence, opportunity costs, perceived effectiveness, and self-efficacy influence adoption.

Design: Qualitative study using narrative analysis followed by inductive content analysis. Context: Optional advanced-level university course on motivational interaction (MI+SDT) for pre-service PE teachers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Two identical 16-contact-hour courses (four lessons) were delivered face-to-face in autumn 2017 and spring 2018 by an experienced coordinator. Participants: Fourth- and fifth-year pre-service PE students (eligible n=114); 35 enrolled (23 autumn; 12 spring), 33 completed (22 autumn; 11 spring). Nineteen course participants (14 female, 5 male) volunteered for interviews. Intervention/course content: Concepts of motivation, SDT basic needs, MI spirit and core skills, and seven mapped motivational interaction techniques (advising without pressing; empathizing/reflective listening; understanding resistance/non-controlling language; providing structure and rationale; providing choice; positive feedback and appreciation; open questions and interest). Participants practiced techniques during sessions and as homework (kept diaries on 1–3 techniques used). Data collection: Semi-structured individual interviews 26–68 minutes, conducted by two researchers uninvolved in course delivery, a few days to 6 weeks post-course. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Topic guide covered training content, feasibility/effectiveness of techniques, and additional support for behavior change. Analysis: Iterative approach. First, narrative analysis identified overarching storylines in participants’ experiences. Then, units concerning benefits and concerns of specific techniques were analyzed via inductive content analysis (open coding, categorization, abstraction), considering both manifest and latent content. Team discussions enhanced credibility; interpretations linked concerns to TFA constructs. Ethics: University of Helsinki Ethical Review Board approval; informed consent; confidentiality; anonymized dataset archived (FSD).

Two overarching storylines emerged: (1) enthusiastic/optimistic adoption and (2) partly reluctant adoption. Participants generally viewed the techniques as tangible, practical tools that, when used appropriately, supported a positive professional transformation and improved classroom climate. Perceived benefits (aligned with technique functions) included: preventing conflicts; reducing workload; clarifying situations; developing good relationships; fostering healing/belonging; opening new possibilities; providing effective instruction; increasing motivation; offering support; providing space and autonomy; and enabling new solutions. Benefits were frequently linked to specific techniques (e.g., positive feedback and appreciation fostering motivation and classroom atmosphere; empathizing/reflective listening developing relationships; providing choice enhancing autonomy and engagement; providing structure/rationale clarifying goals and processes). Concerns clustered into four categories: 1) Problems delivering techniques in group situations: time constraints for empathetic/reflective listening; challenges using non-controlling language during fast-moving conflicts; difficulty allocating feedback equally; uncertainty about applying structure/rationale in PE sessions intended as less structured “release” time; advising without pressing felt more suited to one-to-one contexts. 2) Mismatch with professional role demands: fear of losing control when providing choice; belief that teachers must give directions/advice (questioning asking permission to advise); worry that extensive positive feedback or choice ill-prepares students for “real world” demands. 3) Undesired effects on personal interaction: techniques sometimes felt awkward, forced, or patronizing; difficulties formulating non-controlling language and effective open questions; concern that paraphrasing sounds silly; some students reluctant to self-disclose; some recipients uncomfortable with positive feedback. 4) Target behaviour/technique-related concerns: uncertainty about the appropriate amount of choice; worry that students choose the easiest options; difficulty always finding something genuinely positive to reinforce; need for specificity in positive feedback. Overall, adopting motivational interaction may require re-evaluating teacher role and power dynamics. Concerns mapped onto TFA constructs: affective attitude (skepticism), burden (time), ethicality (fairness, equality, role expectations), intervention coherence (misinterpretations of autonomy support vs chaos), opportunity costs (perceived loss of control), perceived effectiveness (doubts about impact in school settings), and self-efficacy (wording, calibrating amount of choice).

Findings indicate that while pre-service teachers recognized substantial benefits from motivational interaction, concerns—especially around group delivery, perceived role conflicts, interaction awkwardness, and calibration of choice/feedback—hinder adoption. These concerns reflect the common “expert trap,” where reliance on directive expertise can undermine student autonomy and engagement. Clarifying that autonomy support and structure are complementary (not opposites) is critical for intervention coherence and to counter fears of chaos or loss of authority. Mapping concerns to the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability highlights targets for training optimization: reduce perceived burden (time-efficient skills), strengthen ethical fit (equity strategies for feedback and attention), build coherence (correct misconceptions about autonomy support), minimize opportunity costs (demonstrate maintained control within autonomy-supportive practices), bolster perceived effectiveness (evidence and exemplars in educational contexts), and enhance self-efficacy (guided practice in phrasing, reflective listening, and titrating choice). Practical suggestions include modeling non-controlling language, asking permission to advise while retaining teacher guidance, offering limited but meaningful choices, and emphasizing specific, behavior-focused positive feedback. Unlearning non-preferred habits requires time and practice; initial awkwardness is expected.

This study identifies specific benefits and concerns experienced by pre-service PE teachers when adopting SDT- and MI-informed motivational interaction techniques after a 16-hour course. Adoption can prompt a shift from a traditional expert stance toward a more person-centered, partnership-based role. To improve implementation, training should explicitly address misconceptions (autonomy support versus chaos), provide concrete, time-efficient strategies for group contexts, develop skills for precise language and calibrated choice, and include practice with feedback to build confidence. These insights can guide the design of future training and interventions to enhance acceptability, delivery quality, and effectiveness, ultimately aiming to improve teacher–student interactions in PE and foster students’ interest in physical activity. Future work should examine antecedents of technique use, support habit formation and breaking, incorporate planning/self-regulation strategies, and engage the social context to sustain behavior change.

The qualitative findings reflect experiences of 19 volunteers from a single university course context, which may limit generalizability. Interviews occurred a few days to six weeks post-course, providing varied exposure windows to practice techniques. Focusing on specific techniques risks overshadowing the broader motivational interaction spirit, though participants reported that technique practice contributed to shifts in overall style. Interviewers’ non-PE backgrounds may have influenced participants’ disclosures. Additionally, while SDT-based motivation in PE links to self-reported PA outside school, evidence for associations with objectively measured PA is mixed, which contextualizes expectations about downstream behavior change.