Medical Students' Knowledge and Misconceptions About Aging: Responses to Palmore's Facts on Aging Quizzes

Abstract

Palmore's Facts on Aging Quizzes I and II and Facts on Aging Mental Health Quiz were administered as a single test to third-year medical students before and after their 6-week Community Health and Family Medicine clerkship. The clerkship experience contributed to a small improvement in students' knowledge about the aged, net bias scores decreased from pre- to posttest, and scores on FAQI were significantly higher than scores on FAQII both pre- and posttest.

Changing Students' Perceptions of Aging: The Impact of an Intergenerational Service Learning Course

“…The reasons for the popularity of the quizzes are numerous. They are short (25 true or false items in each quiz), designed to cover the basic physical, mental, and social facts about aging, have been empirically documented, and have been tested for validity and reliability (Duerson, Thomas, Chang, & Stevens, 1992;Palmore, 1977;1980). In addition, the results of the quizzes can be used in a variety of ways, including stimulating group discussion, identifying misconceptions about aging, indirectly measuring bias toward the elderly, and evaluating the effectiveness of training in gerontology (Palmore, 1981).…”

Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward Aging Among Non-Elders: Gender and Race Differences

“…In one study, third year medical students were administered the Facts on Aging Quiz (Palmore, 1988) which measures knowledge of aging (Duerson, Thomas, Chang, & Stevens, 1992). Baseline data were collected prior to their experience working in various clinics that included a large number of older patients.…”

Development and validation of a geriatrics knowledge test for primary care residents

“…One of the difficulties in evaluating residency programs is lack of instruments that are geared to the level of geriatrics knowledge in residency training. Although Palmore's Facts on Aging Quiz series [1][2][3][4][5] is the most frequently used instrument for measuring knowledge about aging, the instrument is not designed to measure clinical knowledge of geriatric patient care, and its psychometric properties have been questioned. 6,7 In this study, we developed an instrument that measures geriatric content knowledge, and conducted validity assessments to assess the appropriateness of using the instrument to evaluate residency programs and to help identify specific geriatrics educational needs of residents.…”