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Perception of the Elderly by the Students of the University of South Bohemia
LIDOVÁ, Lenka
Abstract This diploma thesis named "Perception of the Elderly by the Students of the University of South Bohemia" provides a detailed insight into the senior population viewed by the university students. The aim of this work is to register the students' attitudes and the opinions to this issue. The work consists of two parts a theoretical and the practical. The theoretical part deals with issue of ageing process, namely with the changes which are carried by this life period. Further, this part looks at personalities of university students and their needs in general. Next, it covers a general knowledge about interpersonal perception among humans. This part also describes problems of prejudices and stereotypes connected with a very actual issue ageism. The practical part of this diploma thesis contains an own qualitative research which includes a description of used methodology, examined sample, outcomes and further discussion. These data were collected during a field research in February 2014. It was used a technology of semantic differential. The research was undertaken within the University of South Bohemia. Students of Faculty of Theology, Faculty of Health and Social Studies, Faculty of Economy and Faculty of Agriculture were asked to take a part in this study. They expressed their opinions via a web portal www.mojeanketa.cz. These faculties were chosen deliberately for their different fileds of studies. Thus, I compared the opinions of the students whose fields of studies are specialized either on the market and the business sector, or whose fields of studies are specialized on the help professions and, therefore, their further practice will be orientated to the non-profit sphere. Within this study there were distributed 400 record sheets in total (100 for each faculty) where the responders expressed their opinions. The opinions on the perception of the elderly were expressed within the scale from 1 to 5. The values of this scale has been of a contradictory character. For instance, there were these characteristics: beautiful/ugly, noisy/calm, self-sufficient/un-self-sufficient etc. There was also stated a hypothesis which has been predicted that the students of the University of South Bohemia perceive the elderly positively. The research proved this expectation. The outcomes also show that there is no big difference between the individual opinions of the students of different faculties. This result is actually very positive and, therefore, we can say that the students of the University of South Bohemia do not display any prejudices and stereotypes towards the senior population. The outcomes of this work might be very beneficial as sources for educational work beyond ageism. Further, there can be reached conclusions which will lead to reflection. This work can be used for further scientific investigations and publication activity.
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