The Journal of Effective Teaching an online journal devoted to teaching excellence Effects of Aging and Adult Development Education and Service Learning on Attitude, Anxiety, and Occupational Interest Stefanie S. Boswell1 University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX, 78209 Abstract This study investigated the effect of a semester-long aging and adult development course that included an intergenerational, service-learning component on attitudes toward older adult men and women, aging anxiety, and interest in occupations that serve older adults among individuals training for careers in healthcare and social services. It also investigat- ed the relationship between quality of intergenerational contact and ageist attitudes as well as differences in attitudes toward older adult men and older adult women. Data col- lection occurred across two semesters. Participants were 70 undergraduates from healthcare and social service majors. Attitudes improved and aging anxiety declined over the semester; interest in occupations serving older adults did not change. Quality of inter- generational contact was related to attitudes and occupational interest at pre-test and post- test. Implications for teaching as well as service-learning are discussed. Keywords: Intergenerational attitudes, undergraduates, education. The proportion of older adults living active, independent, and productive lives has rapidly increased over the last century and continues to rise (Potkanowicz, Hartman-Stein, & Biermann, 2009). Despite the greater number of healthy and independent older adults, the aging of the Baby Boomer generation (individuals born between 1946 and 1964) is ex- pected to increase demand upon the United States healthcare and social service systems (Anderson, Goodman, Holtzman, Posner, & Northridge, 2012; Kydd, Touhy, Newman, Fagerberg, & Engstrom, 2014; Tomko & Munley, 2013; Wang & Chonody, 2013). When older adults seek these services, they may encounter ageism that facilitates discriminatory behavior and effects the provision of quality care (Allan & Johnson, 2009; Austin, Qu, & Shewchuk, 2013; Ben Natan, Ataneli, Admenko, & Har Noy, 2013; Eshbaugh, Gross, & Satrom, 2010; Koh, 2012). Moreover, older adults may encounter a shortage of providers qualified to address their particular needs. Although demand for professionals with aging and adult development/gerontology expertise will continue to increase, trainees in healthcare and social services fields cite multiple barriers to working in careers that serve older adults (Henderson, Xiao, Siegloff, Kelton, & Paterson, 2008; Koh, 2012). This study examined if a semester-long aging and adult development course that included an intergenerational, service-learning activity could impact known barriers (e.g., ageism, aging anxiety) to working with older adults. 1 Corresponding author's email: [email protected] The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Boswell 6 Ageism, Aging Anxiety, and Other Barriers to Careers Serving Older Adults Researchers have identified barriers to gerontology work among healthcare and social service trainees (Wang & Chonody, 2013). These barriers include anxiety about one’s own aging (Boswell, 2012) and perceptions that jobs serving older adults are of lower status than other careers (Dahlke & Pinney, 2008; Kydd et al., 2014). However, ageist attitudes and pejorative stereotypes may be the most recalcitrant barriers to recruiting in- dividuals to work in the jobs serving older adults (Scharlach, Damron-Rodriguez, & Rob- inson, 2000). Those in healthcare and social services can be particularly vulnerable to the development of ageist attitudes due to their high degree of contact with narrow subset of older adults – those with chronic health concerns (Yun-e, Norman, & While, 2013). Age- ist beliefs among healthcare and social service providers may be related to poor quality contact with older adults (Scharlach et al., 2000; Stewart, Giles, Paterson, & Butler, 2005; Wang & Chonody, 2013), generalization of stereotypes of pathology to all older adults (Rosowsky, 2005), and a dearth of formal aging and adult develop- ment/gerontology education in training programs (Kane, 2007; Scharlach et al., 2000). Ageism is a unique type of negative attitude because young adults who possess these atti- tudes will one day become old themselves (Packer & Chasteen, 2006; Nelson, 2011). Therefore, mitigating ageism’s effects involves two tasks: altering attitudes toward older adults as a group as well as anxieties about individuals’ own aging processes (Laditka, Fischer, Laditka, & Segal, 2004). Much research has addressed ageist attitudes of young adult healthcare and social service trainees toward older adults (Narayan, 2008) and sev- eral scholars consider education to be a critical influence on trainees’ attitudes toward their own aging and in turn, toward older adults as a group (e.g., Ferrario, Freeman, Nel- lett, & Scheel, 2008; Lynch, 2000; Weir, 2004). Aging and Adult Development/Gerontology Education, Ageism, and Aging Anxiety Several researchers have investigated the ability of aging and adult develop- ment/gerontology education to quell ageist attitudes and aging anxiety. Proponents of formal educational interventions avow that knowledge is a crucial influence upon healthcare and social service trainees’ attitudes toward aging; accurate knowledge precip- itates positive attitudes while inaccurate knowledge precipitates negative attitudes (e.g., Stewart et al., 2005). Prior research supports causal relationships between aging and adult development/gerontology education and ageist attitudes. For example, Cottle and Glover, (2007), Ferrario et al. (2008), and O’Hanlon and Brookover (2002) found that aging and adult development/gerontology education training significantly improved atti- tudes toward older adults. Additionally, previous research has yielded a positive correla- tion between knowledge of gerontology and attitudes toward older adults (e.g., Kane, 2007). Research, however, has yielded inconsistencies in the studies of attitudes toward older adults; for example, Knapp and Stubblefield (2000) and Williams, Anderson, and Day (2007) found no attitude change following participation in an aging and adult develop- ment/gerontology education program. One possible reason for inconsistent findings could The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Effects of Aging and Adult Development Education and Service Learning 7 be based in how attitudes toward older adults are assessed (Narayan, 2008; Kite, Stock- dale, Whitley, & Johnson, 2005). Most studies direct participants to provide attitudinal information about a gender-neutral target; however, it is unlikely that participants are tru- ly evaluating a gender-neutral older adult when completing attitudinal measures (Kite et al., 2005; Kite & Wagner, 2002). When the target older adult is gender-neutral, partici- pants “tend to draw their own conclusion” and evaluate either an older adult man or an older adult woman (Narayan, 2008, p. 783). Rating of a nonspecific target may contribute to inconsistent study findings as some studies have found that older adult men are viewed more negatively than older adult women (see Laditka et al., 2004; Narayan, 2008). There- fore, it may be useful to specify the gender of the older adult target when researching the effects of education on attitudes. Informational inaccuracies regarding age-related changes are believed to contribute to aging anxiety (Lynch, 2000). However, there is a dearth of research specifically focused on this relationship (Lynch, 2000). Moreover, the literature that exists has produced in- consistent results (Allan & Johnson, 2009; Harris & Clancy Dollinger, 2001). Service-Learning, Ageism, and Aging Anxiety Social psychology’s intergroup contact hypothesis suggests that increased contact be- tween ingroup and outgroup members can improve attitudes toward the outgroup (e.g., Pettigrew, 1998). Caspi (1984) extended the intergroup contact hypothesis to intergenera- tional attitudes, contending that intergenerational contact would foster positive attitudes toward older adults. Subsequent findings have supported Caspi’s assertion; for example, undergraduates reporting greater intergenerational contact also reported more positive attitudes toward older adults compared to their peers reporting less contact (Van Dussen & Weaver, 2009). These findings suggest that service-learning activities designed to in- crease intergenerational contact may also be useful interventions for reducing barriers toward work with older adults. Indeed, intergenerational, service-learning interventions have produced positive effects upon attitudes toward older adults (Penick, Fallshore, & Spencer, 2014). Students experi- encing intergenerational contact in the classroom report greater knowledge of older adulthood as well as greater interest in careers related to aging (Vélez Ortiz, Cross, & Day, 2012). Moreover, intergenerational service experiences outside of the classroom also produce improvement in undergraduates’ attitudes. For example, undergraduates conducting intergenerational interviews during an aging course developed more complex perceptions of older adults (rather than maintaining simplified stereotypes of the group) (Hayslip, Caballero, Ward-Pinson, & Riddle, 2013). While many studies of intergenera- tional service-learning have investigated the effects of semester-long interventions, this study investigated the effect of a short-term service-learning experience imbedded within a course. Moreover, in addition to investigating the interventions effects on attitudes to- ward older adults, it also investigated the effect on aging anxiety, a variable previously uninvestigated in the service-learning literature. The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Boswell 8 The Current Study Given the influence of ageism on healthcare social services, the increasing demand for professionals to have aging and adult development/gerontology expertise, and the incon- sistent relationship between formal educational training and ageism, the current study in- vestigated the effect of a semester-long aging and adult development course with an em- bedded service-learning activity on attitudes toward older adult men and women, aging anxiety, and interest in working in settings that serve older adults. The study focused spe- cifically on individuals training for careers in healthcare and social services (e.g., nursing, counseling, social work, medicine) who were enrolled in a junior-level course on aging and adult development. The course contained didactic lessons on a variety of topics ger- mane to aging and older adulthood; it also involved assignments aimed to increase the salience of trainees’ biases so they could identify and create an action plan to address them. It also contained work designed to increase students’ perceptions of commonality with older adults; this has previously been associated with improved attitudes toward old- er adults (Gonzales, Morrow-Howell, & Gilbert, 2010). Finally, it involved a service- learning component designed to increase contact with a known older adult. For the current study, it was hypothesized that: 1. Given the relationship between quality of intergenerational contact and attitude (Scharlach et al., 2000; Wang & Chonody, 2013), ratings of contact with older adults would be associated with attitudes and occupational interest. 2. Attitudes toward older adult men, attitudes toward older adult women, and occu- pational interests would increase from pre-test to post-test. 3. Aging anxiety would decline. 4. Finally, it was hypothesized that older adult women would be rated more positive- ly than older adult men. While this finding would be consistent with previous re- search, it was also hypothesized because the sample of the current study was pre- dominantly female and previous research has found that female participants tend to rate female targets more positively (e.g., Laditka et al., 2004). Method Participants Power analysis was conducted using G*Power 3 (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996; Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007). A power of .90 and an alpha level of .05 were used to calculate the minimum number of participants needed to detect a medium effect size (0.30). The analysis indicated that data from a minimum of 61 participants would be needed for the study. Participants were recruited from sections of a junior-level course on aging and adult de- velopment that addresses physical, psychological, and social changes across the adult lifespan. Students enrolled in the course are typically training for allied health and men- tal health professions. Data collection occurred over the course of two semesters; 43 stu- The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Effects of Aging and Adult Development Education and Service Learning 9 dents participated during the Fall semester and 50 participated during the Spring semes- ter. The initial sample was composed of 83 participants; however, data from two partici- pants were excluded because these individuals withdrew from the course prior to comple- tion of the study. Data from an additional 11 participants were excluded due to incomple- tion of study measures. Therefore, the final sample included 70 undergraduates (n = 62, 88.6% female; n = 8, 11.4% male). Participants’ age ranged from 18 to 38 (M = 21.33). The sample was ethnically diverse; 45.7% (n = 32) identified as Latino/a, 31.4% (n = 22) identified as White, 10% (n = 5) identified as multiethnic, 5.7% (n = 4) identified as Black, and 4.3% (n = 3) identified as Asian. One participant identified as Pacific Islander (1.45%, n = 1); one participant did not provide information about ethnic background (1.45%, n = 1). With regard to college classification, the sample was comprised of 2 freshmen (2.9%), 29 sophomores (41.4%), 26 juniors (37.1%), and 10 seniors (14.3%). Participants reported their major as either nursing (n = 31, 44.3%), psychology (n = 25, 35.7%), pre-medicine (n = 4, 5.7%), nuclear medicine (n = 2, 2.85%), music therapy (n = 2, 2.85%), sociology (n = 2, 2.85%), criminal justice (n = 2, 2.85%), or other (n = 2, 2.85%). All participants were students at a medium-sized, open-enrollment university in the southwestern United States. Participants were offered five bonus points toward the first course assignment as incentive for participation. The Institutional Review Board re- viewed and approved this study. Measures Demographic information. Participants completed a questionnaire to gather information about age, sex, ethnicity, college class, and major. Attitudes toward older adults. Attitudes toward older adults were measured using Polizzi’s Refined Version of the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD; Polizzi, 2003). The ASD contains 24 polar-opposite adjective pairs; each pair forms a continuum from nega- tive to positive. Examples of the adjective pairs include “pessimistic/optimistic,” “crab- by/cheerful,” and “bad/good” (Polizzi, 2003, p. 201). Participants rate a target individual on each of the pairs using a scale that ranges from -3 to +3; the midpoint of the scale is labeled “Neutral,” indicating a neutral attitude. Scores can range from -72 to +72; higher scores are indicative of more positive attitudes toward the target individual. A neutral score is zero. To prevent response set, positive and negative adjectives are ordered ran- domly on the left side (-3) of the scale; positive adjectives are recoded prior to data anal- ysis. Polizzi (2003) and Pollizi and Millikin (2002) reported excellent internal-reliability coefficients for the male ASD (α = .97) and female ASD (α = .97). In the current study, the internal-reliability coefficients for the male and female ASDs respectively were .93 and .92 at pre-test and .93 and .93 at post-test. For this study, participants completed two ASD measures at each testing, one for a target described as “the typical male aged 65 to 85” and one for a target described as “the typi- cal female aged 65 to 85.” The male ASD and female ASD were counterbalanced to pre- The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Boswell 10 vent order effects. To avoid the possible introduction of bias, ageist descriptors such as “old” and “elderly” are not used in the ASD (Polizzi & Millikin, 2002, p. 367). Aging Anxiety. The Anxiety about Aging Scale (AAS; Lasher & Faulkender, 1993) is intended to measure anxiety about one’s own aging process. It is a 20-item, Likert-type instrument; responses are made on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Total scores can range from 20 to 80; higher total scores indicate greater aging anxiety. The AAS has four subscales (Fear of Old People, Fear of Loss, Physical Appearance, and Psychological Concerns). The Fear of Old People subscale measures comfort in interaction with older adults (Harris & Clancy Dollinger, 2003). Although these items are not directly related to one’s own aging process, Lasher and Faulkender (2003) state that they measure anxiety in individuals who are “defensive” about aging (p. 257). These individuals may experience discomfort being around older adults, representa- tives of the aging process. The Fear of Loss subscale assesses anxiety about loss associat- ed with aging (e.g., “I fear that when I am old all my friends will be gone” and “I am afraid there will be no meaning in my life when I am old”) (Lasher & Faulkender, 2003, p. 254). The Physical Appearance subscale measures anxiety about normative age-related changes in physical appearance. Finally, the Psychological Concerns subscale measures anxiety about psychological change and subjective well-being in older adulthood (e.g., “I expect to feel good about myself when I am old” and “I will have plenty to occupy my time when I am old”) (Lasher & Faulkender, 2003, p. 254). Lasher and Faulkender report a good internal reliability coefficient for the full AAS (α = .82). In the current study, the AAS internal reliability coefficient at pre-test and post-test was acceptable, α = .70 (Wasserman & Bracken, 2003). Occupational interest. Participants rated their interest in working in a setting that pro- vides services to older adults using a 7-point, Likert-type scale. The scale ranged from 1 (not at all interested) to 7 (very interested). Quality of intergenerational contact. Participants rated the overall quality of their inter- actions with older adults using a 7-point, Likert-type scale. The scale ranged from 1 (very negative) to 7 (very positive). Procedure A repeated measures, fully within-subjects (pre-test, post-test) design was utilized to ex- amine change in participants’ attitudes toward older adult males and females, anxiety about aging, and interest in working in a career that serves older adults over the course of the 16-week semester. Participants completed all study measures during class time; par- ticipants completed the measures on the first and last days of class. Over the course of the 16-week semester, participants attended classroom lessons and completed readings on modules addressing a breadth of issues related to adult develop- ment and aging. These modules included trends and concepts in aging (e.g., increased life expectancy, normative and non-normative influences on development), physical and The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Effects of Aging and Adult Development Education and Service Learning 11 sensory changes (e.g., physical appearance, vision, organ functioning), mental health is- sues (e.g., depression, neurocognitive disorders), relationships and sexuality (e.g., roman- tic and familial relationships, physical changes affecting sexual behavior), living ar- rangements (e.g., aging in place, long-term care), occupational issues (e.g., job satisfac- tion, retirement), leisure and social relationships (e.g., finding meaningful use of time, friendship styles), cognition (e.g., attention, working and long-term memory), and emo- tional experiences and subjective well-being (e.g., happiness, coping). In addition to this course material, participants completed a series of assignments linking course material to their personal beliefs and experiences, interpersonal interactions, and developmental concerns. For the first assignment at the beginning of the semester, partic- ipants described attitudes toward aging within the context of the cultural groups with which they identify (e.g., religious group, ethnic group). They also described stereotypi- cal beliefs they held that generated feelings of negativity or fear about aging or older adults (e.g., older adults are irritable; aging inevitably involves significant loss of cogni- tive function) and then created an action plan to examine evidence associated with these beliefs. Students also described personal beliefs that led them to behave in a biased way toward others and created action plans designed to change this behavioral pattern. In the second assignment, students located recent news items describing research related to adult development and aging, thus linking class content with popular media sources that they use regularly. In the third assignment, participants identified and described non- normative, normative history-graded, and normative age-graded experiences that shape the aging process, including their own. At the end of the semester, participants identified and described developmental concerns that are shared by both young adults and older adults (e.g., changing nature of friendships and romantic relationships, job seeking, use of financial resources). Participants selected two developmental concerns and described how their personal experiences with these concerns were similar to that of older adults they know. This component was aimed to increase perceived commonality with older adults. Participants also identified biased beliefs that they continued to hold and created an action plan to manage the impact of these beliefs on their behavior toward older adults. For the service-learning component of the course, participants submitted a paper based on an intergenerational interview conducted with an individual over the age of 65. For this assignment, participants interviewed an older adult about change in cognitive functioning (e.g., working memory and attention, explicit and implicit long-term memory) and physi- cal functioning (e.g., sensory function, appearance, body build mobility, sleep) across the lifespan. Participants compared information from the interviewee to research findings about normative age-related changes in these domains. Participants also gathered retro- spective information about interviewees’ expectations and stereotypes about the aging process and how those compared to the interviewees’ actual aging experience. Results Bivariate correlations for attitudes toward the older adult male, attitudes toward the older adult female, aging anxiety, quality of contact, and occupational interest at pre-test and The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Boswell 12 post-test are presented in Table 1. At pre-test and post-test, attitudes toward older adult men and older adult women were significantly positively correlated with perceived quali- ty of contact with older adults and inversely correlated with aging anxiety. Perceived quality of interaction with older adults had an inverse correlation with aging anxiety at pre-test and post-test. Occupational interest had positive correlations with attitudes to- ward older adult men pre-test and post-test; it was inversely related to aging anxiety at pre-test only. Finally, occupational interest was significantly related to attitudes toward older adult men at pre-test and post-test. Occupational interest was not significantly re- lated to attitudes toward older adult women. All significant correlation coefficients were medium or medium-to-large effect size (Cohen, 1992). Table 1. Pre-Test and Post-Test Bivariate Correlations. 1 2 3 4 5 1. Attitude, Older Adult Male -- .55** -.47** .35** .32** 2. Attitude, Older Adult Female .65** -- -.38** .37** .15 3. Aging Anxiety -.55** -.38** -- -.41** -.45** 4. Quality of Contact .50** .31* -.39** -- .50** 5. Occupational Interest .35** .10 -.20 .48** -- Note. Correlations for Time 1 are presented above the diagonal; bivariate correlations for Time 2 are presented below the diagonal. * p = .05; ** p = .01 A RMANOVA was conducted to determine if study variables changed over the course of the semester; it was predicted that aging anxiety would decrease over time whereas atti- tudes toward older men, attitudes toward older women, and occupational interest would increase over time. To keep the total alpha level below the customary .05 value, this val- ue was divided by the total number of repeated-measures analyses to be performed (four); to be considered significant, the alpha value for each analysis had to be below 0.01. As predicted, attitudes toward older men and older adult women significantly increased over time. Aging anxiety significantly decreased over time. However, occupational interest did not change. Means, RMANOVA results, observed power, and effect sizes are presented in Table 2. Table 2. Means, Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance for Study Variables. Mean Observed Variable Pre Post F(1, 69) p Power ɳ 2 p Attitude, Older Adult Male 13.36 20.61 29.47 <.001 1.00 .30 Attitude, Older Adult Female 23.63 30.87 30.71 <.001 1.00 .31 Aging Anxiety 41.97 39.91 12.12 .001 .93 .15 Occupational Interest 4.00 3.97 .03 .84 .05 .00 The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Effects of Aging and Adult Development Education and Service Learning 13 One-sample t-tests were performed to determine if attitudes toward older adult men and older adult women were significantly different from neutral at the beginning of the study. To control the family-wise Type I error rate for multiple comparisons, the customary α = .05 was divided by two to produce a significance value of α = .025. At pre-test, attitudes toward both older adult men (M = 13.36), t(69) = 5.34, p < .001, and older adult women (M = 23.63), t(69) = 10.12, p < .001, were significantly different from neutral. Partici- pants reported significantly positive attitudes toward older adults at baseline/pre-test. Paired-samples t-tests were performed to determine if differences existed in attitudes to- ward older adult men and older adult women at both pre-test and post-test. To control the family-wise Type I error rate for multiple comparisons, the customary α = .05 was divid- ed by two to produce a significance value of α = .025. At pre-test, attitudes toward older adult women (M = 23.63) were significantly more positive than attitudes toward older adult men (M = 13.36), t(69) = 4.48, p < .001. This significant difference remained at post-test, t(69) = 5.21, p < .001; older adult women (M = 30.87) were rated significantly more positively than older adult men (M = 20.61). Discussion The main focus of this study was to investigate the effect of a semester-long, junior-level aging and adult development course on attitudes toward older adult men and women, ag- ing anxiety, and interest in working in settings that serve older adults among individuals training for careers in healthcare and social services (e.g., nursing, counseling, social work, medicine). Participants also completed a short-term service-learning activity. This study also investigated the relationship between quality of intergenerational contact and ageist attitudes as well as differences in attitudes toward older adult men and older adult women. Attitudes Toward Older Adult Men and Women and Aging Anxiety The results of the current study reflect a generally positive view toward older adults by young adult healthcare and social services trainees. At pre-test, participants reported more positive than negative attitudes toward older adults; attitudes improved more across the semester. This finding supported part of the study’s primary hypothesis that attitudes toward older adult men and older adult women would improve with completion of the course. These results corroborate those of recent studies that also found trainees to have positive attitudes toward older adults (e.g., Celik, Kapucu, Tuna, & Akkus, 2010; McKin- lay & Cowan, 2003). Contemporary young adult trainees may espouse more positive views of older adults as a result of growing up in a more diverse, open culture with expo- sure to greater models of healthy aging (Narayan, 2008). Given the more recent findings that trainees have generally positive attitudes toward older adults, it is possible that the ageist attitudes present in healthcare and social services settings develop as trainees tran- sition to part-time and full-time work and overgeneralize perceptions formed while serv- ing with range-restricted, high pathology populations or in settings with limited resources (Yun-e et al., 2013). The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved. Boswell 14 As predicted, attitudes toward older adult females were significantly more positive than attitudes toward older adult males at both pre-test and post-test. These findings are incon- sistent with the assertion that a “double standard of aging” exists in which older adult women are viewed more harshly than older adult men (Sontag, 1972). According to the double standard, women are viewed as “old” at earlier ages than men and viewed more negatively, primarily due to changes in appearance; men may become more attractive with age, however, women become less attractive with age (Sontag, 1972). Findings from multiple studies do not support the existence of an overarching double standard. Some research finds that older adult women are rated more favorably than older adult men (e.g., Laditka et al., 2004, Narayan, 2008); other research finds that preference for the older adult male or older adult female is dependent upon the domain being rated (e.g., family, work) (Kornadt, Voss, & Rothermund, 2013). The more positive views of the older adult female yielded in the current study may also be related to the constituency of the study sample: women dominated this sample. Previous research has found that young adult women tend to rate older adult women more favorably than their young adult men coun- terparts (Laditka et al., 2004); this may account for the attitudinal difference found in this study. As hypothesized, participants reported significantly lower aging anxiety at post-test. This finding supports the assertion that informational inaccuracies regarding age-related changes can contribute to aging anxiety (Lynch, 2000). Given that anxiety about one’s own aging is believed to contribute to ageism, educational interventions that lessen aging anxiety may in turn lessen ease negative attitudes toward older adults. Implications for teaching and learning. The finding that attitudes improved over the course of formal aging and adult development/gerontology coursework may lend more clarity to literature base with some inconsistent findings on the matter (e.g., Boswell, 2012; Ferrario et al., 2008; Knapp & Stubblefield, 2000; Treharne, 1990). More im- portantly, attitudinal response to formal education has significant implications for the training of individuals in healthcare and social service careers. Findings such as this em- phasize the importance of teaching and learning in the development of trainees and also in the development of working professionals. The teaching of innovative, aging-related research may mediate the effects of ageist attitudes in the workplace, in turn mitigating discrimination against older adults in healthcare and social service environments. Creat- ing opportunities for providers to learn new information in their fields, through continu- ing education workshops or lengthier college courses, may improve attitudes towards those that they serve. Occupational Interest, Attitudes, Service-Learning, and Quality of Intergenerational Contact The hypothesis that students would report significantly increased interest in jobs serving older adults was not supported. These findings were somewhat surprising given that par- ticipation in aging and adult development and gerontology education is typically associ- ated with higher interest in aging-related careers (Cummings, Adler & DeCoster, 2005; Cummings, Galambos, & DeCoster, 2003). However, some previous research has also The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 15, No.1, 2015, 5-19 ©2015 All rights reserved.