Training Older Volunteers in Gerontological Research in the United Kingdom: Moving Towards an Andragogical and Emancipatory Agenda

摘要

In the UK, very few studies have engaged older people in two or more elements of the research process (design, conduct, dissemination). Although there is a body of work on educational gerontology, there are few publications that specifically focus on training older people as coresearchers. This paper reports upon the training program undertaken as part of the Rural North Wales Initiative for the Development of Support for Older People (RuralWIDe). The RuralWIDe training program was built upon principles of andragogy: the art and science of teaching adults. The trainers used lecturing; modeling (observation of another person conducting a task); and active participation (structured guidance, instructions or trial and error, during which the student discovers for him or herself how to perform the task) to teach older volunteers social gerontology, research methods, interview techniques, and data analysis. This paper describes the methods used in RuralWIDe and highlights instances when these were both effective and ineffective. It assesses the study against Rachal's (200258. Rachal , J. R. (2002). Andragogy's detectives: A critique of the present and a proposal for the future. Adult Education Quarterly , 52(3), 210-227.[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references) criteria for andragogy (voluntary participation, adult status, collaboratively determine objectives, performance-based assessment of achievement, measuring satisfaction, appropriate adult learning environment, and technical issues), and it describes when pedagogical assumptions were made by the research team.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03601271003766270