Research Project 1 Collecting a Life Story

 

One way to understand aging is to study someone's Life story. This will not tell you how people generally change over a lifetime, but it will give you ideas about the complexities, highs, lows, and personals of a person's life. It is also an opportunity to apply material about socioemotional development in late adulthood found in Chapter 20.

You will need to do at least three interviews to collect a life story, Use the first to obtain your respondent's informed consent and to help the person become comfortable with yon. Be sure to explain that you will tape record the interviews, but that you will not use the person's name in any reports or discussions you have about them. In the second (and possible third or fourth) have the person tell their story (don't forget to turn on your tape recorder!), If necessary, suggest a series of topics (childhood, marriage, work) during these interviews - be sure to prepare questions that you can ask to help the person along. The last interview will be a summary and reflection on the previous interview. Each interview should take somewhere between one and two hours.

The next step ideally would be to transcribe the taped interviews, but this is probably too much work for your course (unless this is the major course project). If transcribing is not reasonable or possible, listen carefully to the tapes and make notes about key ideas or themes from the interview; your respondent may have suggested these in the l|ust_: interview. Listen to the tapes to identify statements, stories, or reflections that illustrate the themes. After you have done this first review, listen to the tapes again for additional themes and illustrative material. Finally, from your notes prepare a table that lists the themes and the material that illustrated them.

Write a report in which you at least describe your respondent and characterize your experience of interviewing him or her. Summarize the individual’s life story, including the table you prepared to identify its major themes. Then discuss in as much detail as you can how this person's story relates to the material in Life-Span Development (5/e).

Here is an abbreviated schedule for your interviews:

 

Day One: Introduce yourself and obtain informed consent for

            the interview. Explain how you will use the material.

Questions: What stands out for you as you look back over your

             life?

Probes: Can you give an example of that?

             Explain what you mean by that.

             Tell me more about that point.

             That's interesting. Can you be more detailed?

 

Listen, to the tape of your first interview before doing the second. Determine what you want to know more about. Note possible questions.

 

Day Two: Relationship questions

             Career questions

                Family questions

             Significant event questions

 

Listen to the tape of your second interview before doing the third. Determine what you want to know more about. Note possible questions.

 

Last Day: Reflect on what we have been talking about. Tell me

        about high points and low points. What conflicts stand

        out for you? What did you learn from these conflicts? Is

         there anything eke you would like to add?

 

Research Project 2 Old People at College

 

Santrock reports in Chapter 20 that more older adults than ever before are going to college. He indicates that college performance among these individuals is related to intelligence and information processing skills, but is only able to speculate on the variety⁷ of reasons older people go to college.

Are there elderly adults attending your college? If there are, why are they there? Try to answer these questions for this project.

First, find out how many elderly people attend your school. This information should be available from the registrar. After you (or your instructor) obtains institutional approval, contact four or more of these people and invite them to participate in a project in which you learn their reasons for attending college.

You may choose any method you like to discover their reasons, but one possibility is to have your respondents rate reasons suggested by Santrock in Chapter 20. For example, you could prepare a brief questionnaire in which people indicate how strongly they agree that they are attending college for a specified reason. Have people use a seven-point rating scale (1 = most strongly disagree, 7 = most strongly agree) to express their agreement with the statements listed below. An alternative (or additional) approach would be to have people answer one or two open-ended questions that you put to them in an interview (e.g., "Why are you going to college?").

Whatever method you use, write a brief paper that summarizes your findings. If you have used a questionnaire, construct an appropriate table to show average (mean) ratings. If you have relied exclusively on interviews, report any common themes in individual's responses. If you have done both, be sure to indicate how well the findings from both methods support each other as well as summarizing what they uncover, Discuss your findings in terms of the issues raised by Santrock in Chapter 20.

Sample Questionnaire Items "Why I am Going to College"

1. I want to understand aging better.

2. I want to understand the social changes that have so changed my life.

3. I want to understand the technical changes that have so changed my life.

4. I want to obtain knowledge I need to meet societal demands I now experience.

5. I want to obtain skills I need to meet societal demands I now experience.

6. I need new knowledge to stay competitive at my job.

7. I need new skills to stay competitive at my job.

8. I need to learn a new job.

9. I want to learn more about myself.

10. I want to learn leisure activities for retirement.

 

Chapter 21

 

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