Research Project 2 Knowledge of Older Adults

A major theme of Chapter 18 is that people in general have many inaccurate beliefs about old people. The purpose of this exercise is to find out if this assumption itself is accurate with respect to college students’ knowledge about older adults.

Administer the following "quiz" to at least 10 of your acquaintances. Score each individual’s answers using the key provided below, and note the total number of items each person answer correctly. Next, prepare a table in which you indicate how many people answered each question correctly and the average (mean) score for the group.

Finally, write a brief report of your findings in which you answer at least the following questions:

1. Which questions were most people able to answer?

2. Is there an interesting pattern concerning questions people could/could not answer?

3. Does Santrock’s claim that people hold many false stereotypes appear to be correct?

4. What conclusions do you draw from your findings?

5. How would you explain your findings?

Knowledge of Older Adults Quiz

1. In the United States, about one in eight people is 65 years of age or older. TF

2. The most common health problem among older persons is arthritis. TF

3. New York is the state with the highest percentage of older residents. TF

4. Older men are twice as likely to be married as older women. TF

5. About one-third of older African Americans lives below the poverty line. TF

6. Older men have a higher poverty rate than do older women. TF

7. The educational level of the older population has been steadily decreasing. TF

8. Half of all older women are widows. TF

9. Thirty percent of all older persons have diabetes. TF

10. Due to the small number of births during the Great Depression, the growth of the population will slow down during the 1990s. TF

11. By the year 2030, older people may represent over one-fifth of the U. S.

population. TF

12. About 75 percent of older adults have a significant hearing impairment. TF

13. A child born in 1984 could expect to live about 75 years. TF

14. There are about 150 older women for every 100 older men. TF

15. Most parents over the age of 65 see an adult child at least twice a month. TF

Chapter 19

Research Project 1 Free Recall among College Students and Older Adults

Chapter 19 reports on various aspects of memory function among older adults compared to younger people, but indicates little specific information about how well older adults can recall information they have just studied compared to younger people. You can find something out about this by carrying out this project.

Locate at least four elderly people and four of your college age peers to participate in your project. Make appointments to work individually with each, allowing at least a half an hour to do your "experiment." Before the appointment, get paper and pencils that your respondents can use in the course of remembering words that you will have them study for later recall. Also, prepare a sheet listing the words given below that you can give your respondents to study prior to being asked to remember them.

At the start of the interview, explain your project to your respondents. During this time note carefully how they receive your explanation. For example, are they relaxed? Comfortable? Do they make spontaneous remarks about their memory, or their anticipated performance? Be sure to nоte your observations as soon as you can; a good idea would be to have a prepared data sheet on which you could rate each person's reactions in terms of their comfort, anxiety, confidence, and comments.

Next, do the memory "test." Give the sheet listing the words to each person and let them study the words for exactly one minute. When the minute is past, retrieve the sheet and ask the person to recite numbers backwards from 99 by threes for 30 seconds (this is a standard control for remembering from short-term rather than long-term memory). Immediately after 30 seconds passed, give your respondent a sheet of paper and a pencil and ask them to write as many of the words they have just studied as they can.

Give respondents as much time as they want; note how much time they take. Observe them carefully, again noting their comfort levels, possibly jotting down their spontaneous remarks. When they say they are finished, retrieve the sheet you have given them, give them another, and ask them to try again. Give them as much time to remember as they want.

When people have finished the second memory trial, briefly interview your respondents about their experience. Were they comfortable? Did they enjoy the task? Did they feel confident? Do they feel they performed well? Throughout this interview be as supportive and interested as you can, and assure people that you appreciate their willingness to participate in your project. If you have time, you might try to answer any questions they have about human memory.

Summarize your data in a table that lists the number of words each person in each age group was ablе to recall, and how much time they spent trying to recall, for each trial. Compute averages (means) and list these in your table. Indicate how welt and fast they remembered on the first and second trials. Next, summarize your observations about the reactions of people in each group to the task. Note how many people in each group were comfortable, anxious, confident; note whether there were comments typically expressed by each group. Finally, study the order in which respondents remembered the words. Did they appear to have used any of the words’ characteristics to help themselves remember?

Write a brief paper in which you report your data in the table or tables you have prepared. Be sure to describe the people who participated, including their sex, ages, race/ethnicity, and current "life situation." Discuss your results in terms of information reported in your text. Try to determine whether such things as emotional reaction, confidence, time spent remembering, and use of word characteristics was related to number of words recalled, What do you conclude about the relative recall performance levels of college students versus elderly adults?

Words

street trail Abe chair bear rain

ape drape pear ham hail tail

Claire lamb pony sleet lane cone

phone brain grape Tony Sam lamp