Nutrition Students Improve Attitudes after a Guided Experiential Assignment with Older Adults

Objective: Develop, implement, and evaluate an intervention (a guided experiential assignment) to improve nutrition students' attitudes toward working with older adults. Design: A quasi-experimental design with an additional qualitative component (mixed methods). Setting: A North Central land-grant university. Participants: 100 college students from an upper-level community nutrition course. Intervention: Students were randomly assigned to conduct a guided experiential assignment (dietary behavior change project) working with either an older adult (intervention, n = 52) or a younger adult (comparison, n = 48). Each student conducted 3 client interviews and completed a project report by responding to reflective questions about changes in beliefs, values, and self-efficacy in working with older adults. Main outcome: The primary outcome was attitudes toward older adults as changed in reference to students' beliefs, values, and self-efficacy in working with other adults. Additional outcomes were knowledge of aging and interest in working with older adults. Analysis: General linear model multivariate/univariate analysis and content analysis were conducted on the quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. Results: The intervention group had significantly increased scores on attitudes toward older adults relative to the comparison group. This finding appeared as a result of changes in beliefs about older adults and the increased value and self-efficacy in working with this group by most students in the intervention group. Conclusion and implications: Completion of a guided experiential assignment with older adults in the community was an effective method to improve students' attitudes. Used in the curriculum for nutrition students, this technique might help to improve both attitudes toward and self-efficacy in working with older adults.