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The German Society for Promotion of Research at Old Age (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Forschung im Alter – DGFFA) wants to give an impulse for the intensification of the discussion on those aspects of the demographic change, to which the universities/colleges would need to devote themselves to in due time, if they strive to consolidate their future viability in a society of lifelong learning. The presented suggestions in this contribution are components of a position paper that a wor…
The article analyses the linkage between the age of participants of continuing education and the function which learners appoint to their participation. Therefore, the influence of the subjective age for further education is studied. The study differentiates professional, social and personal functions of participation in continuing education. The result of a factor analysis designs subjective age into the two constructs cognitive and social-psychological subjective age. The data of two survey s…
Voluntary engagement is firmly integrated in the structures of our society. To be able to foster it, one has to understand who is engaged and why. Drawing on data of PIAAC and CiLL surveys, the authors show that age is not a relevant factor in why someone is engaged. Rather, education is a key factor in taking up volunteering activities. This, it is shown, is also true for non-formal activities of adult education.
This article provides insight into the lives of active retirees whose departure from gainful working life has ushered in a new stage in their work-related development. The results of an explorative interview study with retirees working for pay or voluntarily are presented. The article in particular examines the differences between previous work and work-related activity in retirement as well as aspects relating to continuing education.
The study Competencies in Later Life (CiLL) provides for the first time representative data regarding the competencies of older people between the age of 66 to 80 years in three different domains: literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments. It is shown that there are significant differences between people with different qualification, but also between people of different birth cohorts. Despite major qualification differences between men and women, there are no signi…
Im Rahmen des BMBF-Projekts „EdAge – Bildungsverhalten und -interessen Älterer“ sind das Weiterbildungsverhalten und die Weiterbildungsinteressen der 45- bis 80-Jährigen in einem integrierten Forschungsansatz erhoben worden, der quantitativ-repräsentative und qualitativ-explorative Untersuchungsbausteine verbindet. Damit konnten zahlreiche bislang ungeklärte Fragen beantwortet werden: • Wie stark partizipieren Ältere an Weiterbildung und welche Variablen prägen ihr Bildungsverhalten? • Was …
The textbook provides an introduction to the field of education of older adults and lifelong learning. Coming from an interdisciplinary field of research related to ageing, learning abilities and learning needs of older adults are discussed. Additionally, adequate forms of learning and educational arrangements are presented. A special focus lies upon the correlation between competencies and age, taking into account diverse living conditions and biographies. Thus, the textbook offers impulses to…
The research project KLASSIK examines the question of whether it is possible to increase competencies for information processing skills of older people. To this end, training courses that serve as experimental groups, performed a special, metacognitive thinking training. In the project also included comparison groups received no training. Before the treatment a performance test and an intelligence test ensure that both groups come from the same starting conditions. After the final test an appro…
