USING FOCUS GROUPS AS AN EDUCATIONAL METHODOLOGY: DECONSTRUCTING STEREOTYPES AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING AGING AND OLDER ADULTS

During the coming years the number of older adults will increase dramatically, which will require a corresponding increase in the number of social workers who have accurate knowledge of this population. This article reports the impact focus groups with older adults and with service providers who work with older adults and their families have on baccalaureate social work (BSW) students. We find that BSW students exposed to focus groups have their negative attitudes about older adults and service providers deconstructed and replaced with more positive and accurate information about older adults. When students' misconceptions about older adults are confronted, they become more interested in choosing geriatric social work as a career option.     

DEVELOPING MEDIA LITERACY SKILLS TO CHALLENGE TELEVISION'S PORTRAYAL OF OLDER WOMEN

To be old in our society is to be devalued. To be old and female is to experience double oppression. This article reports on a study that examined how television both reinforces and resists the prevailing images of older women in Western society. Two randomly selected television rerun episodes of The Golden Girls were selected to use as a trigger event with members of a graduate course in Social Work with older adults at a major southeastern university. The study found that television reflects societal discourse about aging by providing unchallenged images of older women and their lives. Given the power of television, educators and gerontologists must teach students to develop critical thinking and media literacy skills that challenge and deconstruct television's images about older women and to advocate for new programming that reflects more accurate and diverse portrayals of older women.     

Medical student, resident, and faculty use of a computerized literature searching system

The experiences of medical students, residents, and faculty with a computerized literature searching system were evaluated. Third-year medical students, internal medicine and family practice residents, and full-time and voluntary faculty at one medical school had the opportunity to use a full-text and bibliographic medical literature retrieval system free of charge for an eleven-month period. Subjects conducted nearly nine thousand literature searches over a period of 942 system hours. Questionnaire data showed that participants could learn to use and would use an electronic information system, felt capable of using the system, utilized the system for a variety of purposes and in a number of different ways, and viewed the system as a valuable tool in searching the medical literature. The results are discussed in the context of the educational needs of the four user-groups and medical education planning by institutions.