Learning needs in healthy and active aging according to key stakeholders: a multinational survey.

Healthy and active aging and age-friendly society frameworks attempt to address the well-documented challenges and opportunities of population aging. To meet the needs of an increasingly older society, there is a demand for professionals with appropriate age-related knowledge and skills. To this end, a master's in active aging is in development. This study reports on the consultation with prospective students, employers, older people and academics on the knowledge areas to be included in the course. An anonymous online survey gathered data from stakeholders in Ireland, Slovenia, Austria, Portugal, Finland, and Greece. Participants ranked the importance of 14 broad knowledge areas and linked topics. The influence of participant characteristics on decisions was examined using multivariate regression modeling. Across all stakeholder groups (total sample N = 757), health promotion was most often deemed very important (80%), followed by psychology (73%), and social inclusion and engagement (71%). Potential students from healthcare backgrounds were more interested than others in aging physiology, social aspects, and the physical environment. More western-located European countries overall showed more enthusiasm for the topics presented, additional to regional variations between topics. This learning needs analysis provides multi-stakeholder insights into priorities regarding learning in healthy and active aging and age-friendly society.

Survey Results on Online Teaching and Learning Environments in the European EMMA Project.

In the Erasmus+ project EMMA, a concept for a common digital teaching and learning platform is to be developed for an online joint master program. In the initial phase, a status quo survey was carried out among the consortium members, which shows which digital infrastructures are already in use and which functions are considered particularly important by the teachers. This paper shows the first results of the short survey via online questionnaire and discusses the challenges derived from it. Due to the non-homogeneous infrastructure and software use, there are neither the teaching-learning platform nor digital communication applications tools that are used equally by all six European higher education institutions. However, the consortium pursues the idea of specifying a limited tool pool order to strengthen the user experience and usability of teachers and students with different interdisciplinary backgrounds and digitalization expertise.

Postgraduate education in healthy and active ageing: learning needs, curriculum and expected outcomes: a scoping review protocol.

Background: As the European population ages, it becomes increasingly important to promote and facilitate healthy and active ageing and age-friendly societies. Professionals across a range of disciplines and sectors need knowledge and skills to support both. Objective: This scoping review aims to identify and map the literature on learning needs, learning outcomes and respective curricula in healthy and active ageing and age-friendly society concepts. Inclusion criteria: Studies focused on the teaching/learning process in healthy and active ageing and/or age-friendly society, of any design type, are eligible. Included studies may focus on undergraduate, postgraduate or continuing education and on any aspect of the educational process, such as needs analysis, content delivery, learner satisfaction/acceptability, or education outcome. Methods: This review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for conducting scoping reviews. Four electronic databases, PubMed, EBSCO (Academic Search Complete), Scopus and Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA), will be searched, limited to studies published from 1 st January 2000. Text language will be limited to English, German, Greek, Portuguese, Finnish, and Slovenian. Google Scholar and Research Gate will be searched for grey literature, limited to the first 50 results of each. Title and abstract screening, followed by full-text screening will be undertaken independently by at least two reviewers. The JBI extraction tool will be adapted for data extraction. Quality assessment will be conducted using a tool developed by Hawker and colleagues. A narrative synthesis will outline the data in relation to the aims and objectives outlined.