TITLE:
A new category of “future planning” in the activity card sort: Continuity versus novelty in old age
AUTHORS:
Tsameret Ricon, Pola Weissman, Naor Demeter
KEYWORDS:
Activity Card Sort; Continuity; Innovation; Older Adults; Reliability & Validity
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.5 No.2,
February
27,
2013
ABSTRACT: The Activity Card Sort (ACS) is
a widely used measure for assessing participation in instrumental, leisure,
and social-cultural activities. The ACS addresses previous and current activities
but not future activity plans. The purpose of the study was to extend the ACS
to include future planning. Previous research indicates that participation in
activities and future planning is positively related to life satisfaction,
and increased well-being and that these positive effects were most pronounced for
adults 60 years and older. The current study participants were 60 Israeli
adults aged 55 - 74 years. The research finds future planning to be widespread,
common and significant among older adults. Moreover,
it was found that older people planned to continue previous activities
more that they planned new activities for the future, indicating more
continuity than innovation among the participants in this study. Participants
with higher current or past activity levels planed a greater number of future
activities. Construct validity using known group method showed the extended
ACS to have discriminant validity with respect to age (younger participants
were more active) and gender (highly physical activities were favored by men). MANOVA
repeated measures and Pearson correlations demonstrated moderate-high test-retest
reliability for the extended ACS.