SERVICE LEARNING AND OLDER ADULTS

Youth and older adults are the most valuable sources of community volunteerism in the United States today. An important part of involving youth in service to others has been the proliferation and sophistication of service-learning programs that provide opportunities for meaningful engagement and reflection. Increasingly, service learning is recognized as an integral part of both community involvement and education, and youth are provided with growing opportunities to combine practice and knowledge. As this movement has developed, however, older adult volunteers have been largely excluded. Despite theory and observation that demonstrates older adults' desire to stay engaged in learning and service, programs providing them with structured opportunities are rare. After outlining the development and expansion of service-learning programs for youth in the United States, this paper asks the question, ''Why not service learning for elders?'' analyzes some of the potential benefits of institutionalizing such an approach, and highlights promising efforts in the field.     

MEMORY STRATEGIES REPORTED BY OLDER ADULTS FOR EXPERIMENTAL AND EVERYDAY LEARNING TASKS

Semistructured interviews were used to identify memory strategies used by 35 older adults. Five types of tasks were used: paired‐associate learning, free recall, serial recall, rule learning, and reading comprehension. For the first three tasks, two types of materials were developed: experimental and everyday. The nine memory activities were presented separately. Participants were asked to describe the strategies they would use for each activity. Order of presentation for the experimental and everyday materials was counterbalanced. Examination of the frequency data revealed differences in the number and type of strategies reported for the five types of learning tasks. An analysis of variance revealed that the group receiving the three everyday tasks first reported a significantly greater use of strategies on all tasks. These results indicate that the elderly may have limited repertoires of alternative memory strategies and that the types of materials used can significantly affect their performance.     

IN DEFENSE OF OFFERING EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS FOR OLDER ADULTS

Education and training play major roles in the lives of older adults. They serve preventive, facilitative, remedial, and preparatory functions. In this paper we present demographic changes related to education, outline motives and educational needs of older adults, examine the role of education in reducing the decline in mental functioning, discuss the need to engage underserved segments of the population, and offer suggestions for designing educational programs for older adults.     

INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH EDUCATION IN COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION AMONG HEALTHY OLDER ADULTS

An innovative gerontology education program was developed to advance research on aging that is interdisciplinary and promotes the translation of knowledge from lab to life. The program focuses on communication and social interaction in healthy aging. It brings together faculty mentors, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows from six different postsecondary institutions in Canada. The program unifies basic laboratory research in hearing, vision, and cognition with applied research in audiology, biomedical engineering, optometry, psychology, speech-language pathology, human factors, and social work. The design, implementation, and evaluation of the first year of the program are described and future directions are suggested.     

FAITH DEVELOPMENT IN OLDER ADULTS

This paper has two purposes: (1) To introduce the faith development paradigm of James Fowler and (2) to review a research project in which that paradigm was applied to older adults. Four hypotheses related to “normal” aging were examined in the research project, and no broad‐based support was found for any of the hypotheses. Agesense, a new variable studied in the project, is defined as the degree to which older persons were subjectively aware of changes in general, as they progressed through the periods of late‐middle age and old age. The subjects' agesense ratings were very closely related to their levels of faith development. Questions for further faith development research are included in this article.     

RECEPTIVITY TO PEER TEACHING AND PEER LEARNING ABOUT THE SAFE AND APPROPRIATE USE OF MEDICATIONS AMONG OLDER ADULTS

The purpose of this study was to assess receptivity to peer teaching and peer learning about the safe and appropriate use of medications among communitydwelling older adults. The sample was predominately White (88.5%), female (75.9%) older adults with an average age of 80.2 ( - 9.1) years. On average, the participants perceived their health status as good (2.8 - 0.6). In addition, participants reported using an average number of 4.4 ( - 3.3) prescribed medications. The majority (75%) of participants also reported no problems with their medications. With respect to receptivity to peer teaching and peer learning, the participants, on average, were neutral to peer teaching (6.0 - 2.4), but were somewhat receptive to peer learning (6.7 - 2.2). The number of prescribed medications that a participant reported taking and the age of a participant were identified as significant predictors of receptivity to peer teaching and accounted for 14.5% of the total variance ( F = 5.84, df = 2, p = 0.005). For receptivity to peer learning, the number of prescribed medications also was a significant predictor ( F = 7.50, df = 1, p = 0.008). This study provides the initial step to identifying community-dwelling older adults who would be receptive to peer teaching and peer learning about the safe and appropriate use of medications.     

USING ADVANCE ORGANIZERS TO FACILITATE READING COMPREHENSION AMONG OLDER ADULTS

The following study investigated the effectiveness of comprehension preadjunct questions as a learning strategy for older adults in a classroom setting. Preadjunct questions are questions presented at the beginning of the to‐be‐learned material to guide what is learned and to increase the likelihood that learners will correctly answer criterion test questions. Fifty‐five adults from 55 to 70 years of age were randomly assigned to two groups: the preadjunct question group and a no‐question control group. The groups viewed a video on high blood pressure and completed a recall posttest immediately after viewing the video and 7 days later. Results demonstrated that there was no significant difference between groups. However, the no‐question control group obtained a higher mean score on both the immediate and delayed recall tests than did the preadjunct question group. Results were explained in terms of resource theory of cognitive aging. If educators plan to use preadjunct questions when teaching older adults, they are advised to build opportunities for training and practice into their teaching plans.     

CRITICAL GERONTOLOGY AND EDUCATION FOR OLDER ADULTS

Complementary meanings of educational gerontology are considered to introduce a discussion of the role of “critical gerontology” as a theoretical stance in education for older adults. The sources of critical gerontology are traced to the movement toward interpretive social science in the past decade and to the interdisciplinary dynamics of gerontology as an emerging field of inquiry and practice. Examples of the intentions and uses of critical gerontology and its meaning for education are offered in accounts of the history of the social construction and of wisdom and religion in the postmodern life course.     

PROSPECTIVE MEMORY TRAINING IN OLDER ADULTS

This study evaluates the results of a training program for prospective remembering. The goal of the training was to improve prospective memory by associating cues from the retrieval situation with the to be remembered information. The training group consisted of 20 participants, aged between 45 and 81 years. The effects of strategy training were compared with those of an educational training group (N = 23 , age range 45-84) directed at reducing worries about forgetfulness, and a retest control group (N = 22 , age range 46-74). The educational training and retest control groups did not differ in demographic characteristics and test performance and were combined into one control group. Subjective evaluations revealed that subjects were very satisfied with the effects of training. This also was true for subjects in the educational training condition. The objective effects of training were evaluated with a telephone task which had to be performed in the daily life situation, and a prospective categorization task performed in the laboratory. Despite the low reliabilities of the prospective tasks, a significant but small effect of training compared to the combined control group was found on the sum score of prospective tests. The training effect was not related to age or pretraining performance level. At the three months follow-up, however, performance of the control group had increased to the level of the trained group. As expected, training effects did not generalize to other memory measures (assessed with tests for remembering names) or control measures (assessed with visuo-motor reaction time tests).     

SENIOR CISE : A PRINT EXERCISE INTERVENTION FOR OLDER ADULTS

This study was conducted to examine the efficacy of an inexpensive educational print exercise intervention based on the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) for older adults. Secondary objectives of this study were to examine the quality of the print intervention and possible ways to improve it through survey techniques. This was a posttest survey design. Information about the Senior cise booklet was distributed to senior housing communities and recreation centers throughout Rhode Island. One hundred thirty-three posters and 5,280 pamphlets with return postcards for ordering the Senior cise booklet were delivered over a period of nine months. Individuals who requested the booklet were contacted via telephone two weeks following mailing to assess the efficacy and quality of the booklet. Ninety-eight individuals requested the booklet and 61 participants completed the evaluation (mean age = 73 - 5.3 years; 77.1% female). The majority of participants found the booklet of good quality, stated that it created an interest, and said it inspired them to actually engage in physical activity. Survey participants cited only a few main good points and negative points about the booklet in general. The use of an inexpensive educational print intervention (Senior cise ) based on the TTM was well received and successful in engaging older adults to consider and participate in physical activity. The positive and negative points cited about the booklet will allow other researchers a better insight into what can make educational print interventions successful. Experimental research designs are recommended to evaluate more fully the efficacy of future exercise based print interventions.     

PHYSIOLOGICAL INDICATORS OF STRESS AND INTELLECTUAL PERFORMANCE AMONG ANXIOUS OLDER ADULTS

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the relationship between anxiety and cognitive performance in older adults. We asked 27 older adults, self‐selected on the basis of their concerns about decrements in intellectual functioning, to perform a series of cognitive tasks to assess crystallized (Gc) and fluid (Gf) intellectual abilities. Volunteers also completed questionnaires concerning their beliefs about their task performance specific to each ability, as well as measures of both generalized and intellectual self‐efficacy, everyday cognitive failures, and concerns about illness and aging. Cortisol was measured as an indicator of anxiety and Epstein‐Barr virus levels were assessed to determine nonspecific physiological changes. Results indicated that in the self‐selected “anxious” sample, there was a significant negative correlation between cortisol and self‐efficacy related to the most difficult measure of Gf. The only other significant (negative) correlation was between cortisol and generalized self‐efficacy. As expected, EBV levels were not correlated with any of the performance or self‐efficacy measures taken. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed as they relate to varying levels of performance and concerns about the loss of skills among older adults.     

LIST FORMATS IMPROVE MEDICATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR OLDER ADULTS

We conducted a survey to compare a group of older adults’ and a group of younger adults’ beliefs regarding their own and each other's memory abilities. We also asked both age groups to identify items they believed older adults remember well. The survey was returned by 185 older (ages 60‐92) and 184 younger (ages 17‐39) participants. Of the 30 items we generated older adults reported that they would remember 23 better than younger adults would and 7 worse than younger adults would, and younger adults reported that they would remember 12 of the items better and 18 of them worse than older adults. Both age groups also generated many items that they believed older adults remember better than younger adults do. Finally, respondents generated items that they believed adults in their own age group had to remember routinely that adults in the other age group did not. The two groups agreed that older adults would spend more time and have more difficulty learning lines for presentation to an audience than would younger adults. Most of the older adults reported that their memories had changed; most of the younger adults reported that their memories had not changed. The belief that although older adults’ memory is worse than young adults’ they still remember some things better than the young is viewed as a realistic assessment, and implications for future research are discussed.     

INTERNET USE AMONG YOUNG AND OLDER ADULTS: RELATION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING

Past research found a negative impact of Internet use on psychological well-being of young adults. This finding conflicted with the emerging literature on Internet use among older adults, which usually suggested positive effects. The goals of the current research were a) to examine age differences in psychological well-being, b) to study the impact of Internet use on psychological well-being of young and older adults, and c) to explore group differences between older Internet users and nonusers of psychological well-being and personal characteristics. Three hundred and ninety-six young and older adults completed a survey on internet use and psychological well-being. Young and older adults were found to differ on dimensions of psychological well-being. In addition, older Internet users were more positive than non-users concerning psychological well-being and personal characteristics.     

A MULTIDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE MODEL FOR INDEPENDENT PRACTITIONERS WHO WORK WITH OLDER ADULTS IN THE COMMUNITY

This article presents a framework for the integration of community services for older adults. A model for multidisciplinary practice is introduced to teach students and professionals how independent practitioners can integrate their community practices. Practitioners from disciplines such as medicine, nursing, social work, psychiatry, psychology, finance, law, and religion can develop collaborative community practices to more effectively serve older adults. A generic multidisciplinary instrument for use with this model was developed for assessment and referral purposes. Collaboration has been the mark of professional behavior in institutional settings. This article applies these principles to the community practice setting. Reform efforts are necessary to advance from the current ways of thinking to more effective community practice strategies. Community efforts have not followed the lead of professional efforts in institutional settings in the development of collaborative, interdisciplinary planning for older adults. Educators can use this model to teach students and practitioners a new nontraditional method for community practice. It is imperative in this time of challenge in the field of gerontology that practitioners examine new ideas and adopt new models in their teaching and professional practices.     

THE LEARNING AND RETENTION OF TEACHING SKILLS BY OLDER ADULTS: A TIME SERIES ANALYSIS

Comparative analysis of time series data (T1 = preprogram; T2 = postpro‐gram; T3 = 6‐month followup) collected for the first year class of an older adult teacher training program (N = 35; mean age = 69.1 years) documents that the elderly learn and retain materials learned at different rates. Variables such as age, sex, teaching experience, education, and race/ethnicity all potentially play a role in differentiating the learning process. Evaluation results further confirm that the initial acquisition of leadership skills by older adults is no guarantee that those skills will be maintained successfully over time. There may also be a false sense of confidence in some older learners that is gained simply by their having successfully completed an organized course of training. Study findings lead to recommendations emphasizing the importance of promoting resilient skills capacity in the teaching domain by older adults by means of a variety of skills‐preservation program techniques inlcuding the provision of educational seminars, “retooling” sessions, and reunion programs subsequent to the offering of the initial teacher training program.     

THE ACTIVE INGREDIENTS IN HUMOR: PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL BENEFITS AND RISKS FOR OLDER ADULTS

Humor produces psychological and physiological effects on our body that are similar to the health benefits of aerobic exercise. These benefits are some of the best kept secrets from those persons who probably have the most to gain from that information - older adults. Many of them who must live with chronic pain, arthritis, rheumatism, emphysema, memory loss, depression, and stress may be able to cope better with their conditions or find temporary relief by using humor. This article presents an up-to-date, comprehensive synthesis of 30 years of research evidence on 15 psychophysiological benefits of humor and laughter with their implications for older adults. The specific risks for this growing segment of the population also are identified. Strategies for communicating this information through publications and formal presentations by health educators working in gerontology are suggested. A curriculum outline is provided for use in developing short, feature presentations or integrating the content into existing exercise and health-related courses and programs. If these efforts are effective, eventually the health benefits of humor and laughter will be as familiar to our senior citizens as the risk factors associated with heart disease and smoking.     

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT AND CAREER RETRAINING IN OLDER ADULTS

Recent research on the cognitive development and functioning of older adults is reviewed and explored in relation to vocational retraining. It is argued that an ecological approach to the study of cognitive development in older adults is preferable, based on the life‐phase, hierarchical‐stage and cognitive functioning literatures. The relevance of this literature for career development in older adults is considered and suggestions for future research are offered. In particular, it is proposed that retraining programs designed to facilitate the career adaptability and success of older persons should attempt to increase their cognitive complexity and flexibility.     

NEW ROLES AND NORMS FOR OLDER ADULTS THROUGH HIGHER EDUCATION

A growing number of older adults develop new roles and identities in their retirement years. They may be trend‐setters in creating new norms for future generations of retirees. Research conducted by the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement at the University of North Carolina at Asheville on middle‐class, well‐educated retirees with professional or managerial prior work roles indicates that these retirees want volunteer, leadership, and learning opportunities. A study of 101 alumni of the center's leadership for seniors program showed how institutions of higher education can play a prominent part in facilitating the development of roles and norms that often transcend the general public's ideas of what retirees can do and contribute.     

PERSONAL GROWTH ASPECTS OF PEER COUNSELOR TRAINING FOR OLDER ADULTS

Although there has been an increase in the use of older adults as peer counselors, little is known about the effects of such training on the peer counselor students. In order to be an effective counselor, the older adults must not only examine their own lives, but they must also disclose their life experiences as well as their personal feelings to their clients. It was thought that these processes of self‐examination and self‐disclosure would result in a reappraisal of the older adults’ attitudes and feelings about themselves. The present study sought to examine the degree of personal growth experienced by older adult participants of a peer counselor training course. It was found that the training course attracted individuals who were self‐assured in their ability to deal with the problems of their lives and who wanted to assist others gain the same degree of self‐confidence. Furthermore, it was found that the training course served to increase the participants’ levels of self‐confidence and self‐reliance while at the same time training the students to use these qualities to help others.