Facilitating Age-Conscious Student Development through Lecture-Based Courses on Aging

Ageism is pervasive and socially normalized, and population aging has created a need to understand how views of aging and of older people, typically considered to be people over the age of 65, can be improved. This study sought to understand how undergraduate students' attitudes towards older adults and the aging process may be influenced after completing a typical, lecture-based undergraduate course on aging that lacked service-learning components. Two undergraduate student cohorts (n = 40) at two Canadian universities participated in semi-structured focus groups/interviews, describing how the course may have impacted their perceptions of the aging process and of older adults. An iterative collaborative qualitative analysis demonstrated that course content stimulated a deeper understanding of the aging process, prompting a reduction in and increased awareness of ageism, and enhanced personal connection with aging, ultimately facilitating the development of an age-conscious student. Lecture-based courses focused on aging may be sufficient to facilitate positive attitude change among undergraduate students towards older adults and the aging process.