Simulating health promotion in an online environment

Although Web-based courses have distinct advantages, one of the challenges of the medium is to assess students' abilities to apply knowledge, especially regarding interpersonal communication skills. The purpose of this article is to describe a motivational interviewing application exercise developed for a graduate-level online health promotion course. Small groups of students met online for synchronous role-play chatroom experiences in which students guided each other toward healthy lifestyle behavioral changes using motivational interviewing skills. Chatroom transcripts and students' reflections demonstrated a deeper understanding and appreciation for motivational interviewing and appeared to alter their perceptions of health promotion beyond the task of providing patient education.