The effects of instruction and experience on college students' attitudes toward the elderly

The goal of this study was to evaluate a program designed to promote attitude change among undergraduates, whose views of the elderly have traditionally been mined. The subjects were college students enrolled in a psychology of aging class. They completed measures pertaining to knowledge of the aging process and attitudes toward: the elderly during the first week of class and then, again during the last week. In addition, a subgroup of the class who volunteered weekly with the elderly were compared with other subgroups who had limited or no contact with older adults. These volunteers were required to document their experiences in journals, which were then examined to provide qualitative data. Finally, a control group was included in art effort to control for positive bias in the aging class. A 2 (time) x 3 (group) multiple analysis of variance with repeated measures on the first factor was conducted on these data. There was a significant effect of time, F (1,94) = 20.47, p < .001. Students' knowledge about and attitudes toward the elderly significantly improved over the course of the semester. However, there was no significant difference between the volunteer group and the other groups, F (2,94) = 2.007, p > .05. Explanations for these results as well as limitations of the study are discussed.