Efectos de los programas univesitarios en personas mayores en su red y apoyo social. El ejemplo de la Universitat Oberta per a Majors.

Abstract

RESÚMEN.Introducción. El apoyo social se configura como una dimensión clave de la calidad de vida y del envejecimiento activo. El objetivo de la investigación fue describir y analizar la red y apoyo social de las personas alumnas del Diploma Sénior y Diploma Sénior Superior de la UOM entendiendo que éstos han aumentado su red social y pueden usar el apoyo social (emocional, informacional y material) que necesiten en diferentes circunstancias y procesos (recepción, percepción, demanda y donación), vinculándolo al capital social de éstas. Mé-todo. Se plantean una serie de hipótesis que han sido contrastadas a través de un cuestionario propio basado en: variables sociodemográficas, red social y apoyo social. El cuestionario se construyó a partir de diversas fuentes de referencia y fue parcialmente validado por pares y por jueces expertos. El análisis de los datos obtenidos se procesó con el programa estadístico SPSS.21. Resultados. Las personas mayores, alumnas de la UOM, poseen un buen nivel de apoyo social (emocional, informacional y material), además tienen una muy buena percepción de éste y una buena red social, tanto a nivel cuantitativo como cualitativo. Se observa una relación entre la mejora del capital social formativo y relacional con el apoyo social obtenido, en sus diversas modalidades. Discusión. Entre las principales destacamos: a) hay diferencias significativas entre las redes sociales y el apoyo social según el sexo, el grupo de edad, con quien viven y nivel de estudios; b) participar en la UOM produce cambios positivos en las redes y apoyos sociales de las personas mayores, especialmente a partir del reconocimiento o de la mejora del capital social formativo y relacional; c) la mayoría de los cambios se producen en los primeros cursos estabilizándose en los últimos años. Concluimos con una serie de propuestas de futuras investigaciones. To this end, the hypothesis will be tested through a specially created questionnaire based on three principal areas: socio-demographic, social network variables and social support variables. The questionnaire was made using various reference sources and was partially validated by peers and expert judges. The analysis of all the data is processed using the SPSS.21 program. Results. Senior students at the UOM have a good level of social support (emotional, informative and material); they also have a very good perception of this social support and a good social network, both at quantitative and qualitative levels. It can be observed a relationship between the improvement in educational and relational social capital with the social support received, in its various forms. Discussion. This article concludes with some elements for discussion related to the hypotheses: a) there are significant differences among social networks and social supports according to gender, age group, cohabitation status and level of education; b) participating in the UOM produces significant positive changes in seniors' social networks and social supports, especially through the recognition or th...

The implication of formal educational activities in old age and its relation to psychosocial indicators /La implicación en actividades educativas formales en la vejez y su relación con indicadores psicosociales

“…Results for social support indicate that both groups are similar in some ways and different in others: PUM students have not reported family social support networks different from those of the community sample, but their non-family network is indeed wider and more intense. These results are in line with those of other studies (Villar, 2006;Vives et al, 2015) in which older people's support networks improved when they included colleagues from university; nevertheless, in other studies (Lucas-Molina et al, 2015), older people's social networks do not change substantially as a result of PUMs. In our opinion, this inconsistency has different possible explanations.…”

“…In general, the studies developed in Spain have followed two objectives: (a) to assess these programmes in order to verify if they do indeed meet the objectives established and to identify potential additional benefits; and (b) to characterize their users, examining their sociodemographic profile and different psychosocial indicators. Most studies have worked with samples of PUM students from different universities, including Almería (Pérez-Fuentes et al, 2010), Barcelona (Villar, 2006; Villar, Pizano, Triadó, Celdrán, & Solé, 2010), Girona (Villar, 2006), Miguel Hernández de Elche (Segura, Bonete, & Rodríguez, 2015), Balearic Islands (Vives, Orte, & Ballester, 2015), La Rioja (Pérez-Albéniz, Pascual, Navarro, & Lucas-Molina, 2015), Tarragona (Villar, 2006), the National University of Distance Learning (2014) and Valencia (Montoro, Pinazo, & Tortosa, 2007; Villar, 2006; Villar et al, 2010). Furthermore, some studies have compared PUM students with older people who do not participate in formal educational activities, such as, for example, the studies of Gázquez, Pérez-Fuentes, and Carrión (2010) with PUM students from the University of Almeria, Lucas-Molina, Pérez-Albéniz, Fonseca, and Ortuño (2015) in La Rioja, Ruíz, Morales, and Morales (2011) in Malaga, and Vilaplana (2010) through a representative sample of the Spanish population.…”

“…In addition to the educational dimensions detailed above, the socio-demographic profile of PUM students is another area that has received considerable attention in the literature and which shows highly consistent results (Orte et al, 2004). Thus, older people who participate in PUMs are of different ages (oscillating between 60–65 years old), tend to be married and have mid-high levels of education, and the percentage of female students tends to be higher (60–75%) than males (Montoro et al, 2007; Segura et al, 2015; UNED, 2014; Villar, 2006; Villar et al, 2010; Vives et al, 2015). If we compare them with other older people, PUM students tend to be female, significantly younger, and, above all, have higher levels of studies (Gázquez et al, 2010; Vilaplana, 2010).…”

“…Although one of the objectives of PUMs tends to be the strengthening and diversification of social networks, their effects on social support have only been examined in some studies, as a secondary interest, and mainly without standardized instruments. However, beyond the educational function of PUMs, an analysis of their effect on social support ties in with the paradigm of lifelong learning and, specifically, with the question of how the promotion of this dimension in old age can foster active ageing (Vives et al, 2015). In fact, different studies find that most of these students believe that their participation in PUMs has an effect on their social network, improving it as a result of the incorporation of their university colleagues (Villar, 2006; Vives et al, 2015).…”

The socio-demographic divide in Internet usage moderated by digital literacy support

“…On the other hand, the UPS, which arose in the 1970's, were designed to improve the basic skills of older adults in order to promote their social, cultural participation and personal development [52]. Although two UPS models can be differentiated (University Classes for Older Adults and Experience Universities [EU]), in this study we only considered the EU model as it was the most frequently applied in Spain [51].…”