The Student Check-Up: effects of paraprofessional-delivered Motivational Interviewing on academic outcomes

Abstract Paraprofessionals and school volunteers increase the number of youth who receive academic and mental health interventions by providing services that were traditionally reserved for professional staff. However, the promise of these low-cost, high-volume non-professional services is tempered by the lack of experimental evidence documenting their effectiveness. In this study, we trained non-professionals to provide a brief school-based Motivational Interviewing (MI) intervention called the Student Check-Up (SCU) to middle school-students. In contrast with previous studies, we found no significant differences between treatment and control groups in post-treatment academic grades. However, following the SCU, participants randomly assigned to the treatment group rated the importance of in-class participation and academic effort self-efficacy significantly higher than those in the control group. Based on these results, we provide recommendations for improving the effectiveness of paraprofessionals’ use of the SCU and for improving future research methodology in this area.