Dear Solomon, dear Prudence: Using student written advice responses to demonstrate and teach theory application

Abstract

People often seek advice and social support. One approach for seeking advice is by submitting one’s problems/concerns to an advice columnist. More contemporary forms of advice seeking are seen on discussion boards (e.g. Reddit) where individuals ask questions (often anonymously) and gather responses from others. This activity makes use of advice-seeking scenarios so that students better understand and apply interpersonal and health communication theories. Students are guided in the process of providing advice while using course-specific relevant communication theory to craft their responses. In this article, we explain the activity, provide examples of two requests for advice, and include recommendations for assessment.

Courses: Interpersonal Communication/Health Communication.

Objectives: The goal of this activity is to help students retain and apply communication theories/models by using relatable hypothetical advice-seeking requests.