The major emphasis was the development and evaluation of a
secondary school unit on aging that focused on prevalent age—stereotypes.
The systematic development of materials was followed by field
testing of the instructional unit.
Two levels of field testing provided suggestions for improving
the unit. Evaluation of the revised unit by teachers, students and
various experts indicated very favorable reactions to the materials. The unit on aging was generally perceived as interesting, worthwhile,
and appropriate for future classroom use.
A pre-, posttest, delayed post test experimental design assessed
the unit's effectiveness in promoting more accurate beliefs about
older people and increasingly positive attitudes toward the elderly.
Posttest and delayed posttest findings on the knowledge instrument
revealed that students receiving instruction scored significantly
higher on this measure than students not receiving instruction.
Scores on the attitude assessment instruments indicated that
all students tended to evaluate older people in a positive direction
regardless of aging instruction. The treatment significantly
affected students' negative feelings abcut the aged, but this significant
finding was not encountered on the delayed posttest scores of
the same instrument. An examination of the influence of pretesting
suggested that this attitudinal shift was an artifact 0f the design.
next to an author's name indicates that all files or directories associated with their ETD are accessible from the Virginia Tech campus network only.
![[VT]](http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/images/ETD-db/restricted.gif)
