CAVIPUMA

Name of the Project

CAVIPUMA  

Dates

20/12/1999 - 20/09/2000

Coordinating Institution, Country

• Autonomous University of Madrid

Participating Institutions, Countries

• University Center La Salle
• Autonomous University of Mexico
• Catholic University of Chile
• University of Havana, Cuba

Name of the call

Projects of International Cooperation UAM-Santander

Goals

-Compare the university programs for older adults of the participant universities in two aspects:
1) Structure and running of the program
2) Evaluation by pre-post quasi-experimental designs of the quality of life after a year of running the programs.
-Develop a program with E-learning methodology to exchange experiences and knowledge among the University Programs for Older Adults of the participant Universities

Content

-Regarding the comparison of the different University Programs for Older Adults, we find differences in the objectives, contents, evaluation methods and duration.

-The evaluation of the changes in the quality of life of the participants in those programs was carried out using the instrument CUBRECAVI. 313 participants of the programs were assessed in 190 tests. The pre-post comparison showed differences in some of the variables of the quality of life related to affection, productivity and memory; different programs obtained different results, some of which unexpected.

-The development of the E-learning program was used as a pilot program for its future development and it was tested in two editions: Spain and Chile.

The purpose of the program is to learn how to grow old in a good way and the topics are developed in a theoretical-practical way. The materials of the course, Vivir con Vitalidad© (Living with Vitality) were adapted for its e-learning version. There were 4 different types of contents in the program: readings, questionnaires, forums and tasks. The program is structured in 7 modules: presentation, my opinion on old age, conceptions of old age and aging, growing old in a good way, some negative conceptions about old age and aging, activities to solve some of the problems and assessment of the program. 25 students registered, 14 in Spain and 11 in Chile. The program was developed in 5 hours during 4 weeks.

We extracted the following conclusions from the given questionnaires:
-Questionnaire about conceptions of old age and aging. The most common mistakes are those related to physical abilities (for instance, associating physical deterioration to age and not to lack of practice) and to emotions and personality (for instance, associating depresion and boredom to old age).

-Test about how am I growing old. 84% of the participants believe that they go 'pretty good' and 15% 'so-so'.
An intermediate test was carried out considering the students production, meaning the activities carried out, gathering a whole of 10.606 activities.
Regarding the final assessment, the students were asked to put into practice the adquired knowledge, detecting the areas that need improvement and the objectives of change. Analyzing the objectives planning we found that the areas that need to improve the most are: cognivite skills, social skills (leisure activities) and lifestyles (quit smoking, taking care of their diet and making sports).
The assessment of the course resulted in the following:
-Contents. Interest and innovation 100% quite a lot. Difficulty 100% almost nothing
-Exercises and questionnaires. Interesting and useful 100% quite a lot. complicated 100% a little.
-Level of satisfaction with the e-learning method. 100% quite a lot
-Level of satisfaction with the program. 100% quite a lot 25% a little.

Related links (Website and links to the documents, publications and reviews of interest)

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03601277.2012.699817