Using Biographies of Adults over 65 Years of Age to Understand Life-Span Developmental Psychology

Abstract

Students in an undergraduate life-span developmental psychology course either wrote a traditional term paper or conducted a project that required interaction with a mentally alert adult over 65 years of age (senior citizen). Those who chose the project assisted a senior citizen in writing his or her own life story. Along with the life log, students submitted a paper demonstrating how their particular senior citizen experienced and worked through each of the life stages. By assisting their senior citizen to organize memories and interpret decisions that had shaped his or her life, the young adult students experienced those stages that they themselves had not yet lived through. Students evaluated the project positively as a theoretical learning experience and as a personal growth experience.