Demystifying Ageing Bias Through Learning Co-designing an Online Course About ‘Ageing Well’

Abstract

Ageing bias is still one of the major concerns in current society that is likely to lead to misunderstandings about the ageing process, denials and stereotypes that tend to have an impact on both illness prevention and health-behaviour changes. Although many technology-based learning solutions addressed to learners aged 50 and over have been proposed, there has been little discussion about the development of these solutions for prevention and health-behaviour changes in later adulthood. In addition, these solutions rarely take both participatory design techniques and the definition of active ageing into account. Thus, this paper describes the conceptualization process of a video-based online course about ‘Ageing well’ addressed to learners aged 50 and over of the Universities of Third Age. Perspectives on both strategies and elements for developing an online video-based course to encourage health-behaviour changes and a positive attitude towards the ageing process were sought. Thirty-three learners aged 50 and over were involved in the co-design process and the field research deployed an array of longitudinal methods, including participant observation, surveys and group discussions. This study suggests that the main strategies for developing an online course that takes these learners’ context into account should: (a) develop an audio-visual strategy that both triggers narrative immersion and at the same time make the learner familiar with the source of information (mentor’s credibility); (b) foster self-knowledge (“know thyself”); (c) reward task-management; and (d) build a community of practice.