Developing a Scale to Examine Aging-Related Assets Developed Through Sport in Older Adults

Background: Participation in sport continues to rise among older adults. Interestingly, sport is proposed as an avenue to continue development, particularly in psychosocial outcomes, across the lifespan. However, a significant limitation in this area is the lack of an appropriate measure to explore the development of psychosocial outcomes (i.e., assets) in older adults.

Objective: The overarching purpose of this dissertation was to create a quantitative assessment tool to measure psychosocial assets in older adults.

Methods: To achieve this aim, a mixed-method, sequential research design was applied, where the initial phases in the study helped inform and guide subsequent phases (i.e., development of the assessment tool). Study One included a scoping review that summarized our knowledge on sport and older adults since the first World Masters Games. This step was important in understanding how older athletes have been studied in prior research. Study Two, focused on examining the sport experiences and psychosocial development of older rowing athletes. Responses from eight athletes were analyzed to help confirm previous findings on psychosocial assets, report any novel assets, and examine general sport experiences in rowing. The final study used information gathered from previous studies as well as knowledge in the area of psychosocial development to create a preliminary instrument, “Psychosocial Assets Scale (PAS)”, to measure psychosocial assets in older adults.

Results: The scoping review indicated most studies examined physiological outcomes with little exploration in areas such as psychosocial outcomes. Additionally, most studies did not report data on sociodemographic variables. Results from Study Two suggested sport experiences and psychosocial development of assets varies across individuals. In addition, findings indicated some negative sport experiences, which could alter development of assets. Lastly, the creation of the PAS showed emergence of nine factors: wellbeing, contribution, social support, drive/challenge, integrity, health habits, supportive family relationships, perceived safety, and desire to learn/continued learning.

Conclusion: Collectively, this dissertation led to the creation of a preliminary scale to measure psychosocial assets in older adults. While the scale created in this dissertation requires further validation, the PAS allows researchers to advance in this area with implications for research, policy developers, sport advocates, and the broader society