The effects of an intervention program for elderly people upon physical education undergraduates' intention to work with this age group

Abstract

This research intended to find out about Physical Education undergraduates. intention of working with the elderly after the application of an intervention program designed to attend this age group, as well as, whether this influenced the student´s perceptions of aging issues considering gender differences. Twenty-seven undergraduates (both male and female; average age: 23.2 years) from a public university of Sao Paulo City, Brazil, participated in the study. The intervention program consisted of two courses, Physical Education in Old Age, I, and Physical Education in Old Age, II, which lasted one term each. During this period the undergraduates were submitted to several teaching strategies. The data were collected before and after the intervention by means of two questionnaires about questions regarding the kinds of experience with aging issues, the intention of working with the elderly, and the subjects' perceptions of the direct contact with them during the intervention program. Non-parametric statistics and McNemar's and Exact of Fisher's tests were used to analyze the collected data. The results showed that the subjects' intention of working with the elderly increased significantly (p < 0.05), changing from 33% before the intervention to 81.4% afterwards. There were no gender differences regarding such intention. We came to the conclusion that the teaching strategies adopted in the disciplines were effective in increasing the subjects' interest in working with the elderly