Find the Change Talk

'''Abstract''': Participants try to identify change talk within ongoing dialogue.

'''Overview''': Provide a sample of dialogue. It can be from a motivational interview, or even from a film, song, TV show, etc. On first try it is helpful to work from a transcript, to slow down the process.

'''Guidelines''': Explain clearly what constitutes change talk. You can draw on coding guidelines from the MISC of MITI for clarity. (e.g., talking about past-tense motivation is not change talk). Then provide an opportunity for participants to identify change talk within dialogue.

'''Examples''': Distribute a transcript for participants to read, and have them underline what they regard as change talk.

Play a taped segment and have participants signal when they hear change talk. (See [[Drumming for Change]] Talk). It can be helpful to stop the tape frequently to discuss.

'''Notes''': In general, except in research, it is not crucial to identify what subtype of change talk it is. Even experienced coders find it difficult to reliably discriminate D, A, R, and N, although they can reliably code DARN as a single category.

Contributed by: Terri Moyers