AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
future and also the whole complex of needs of the social facility
where the seniors live. Therefore the identification of the current
(educational) needs, motivation and interests of an older person
represent the gateway to the success. It is not possible to educate
without knowing who to educate and also without knowing
whether the institutionalized senior is really interested in
education.
In the end, we would like to add that, when analysing the
educational needs of institutionalized seniors, it is important to
avoid different mistakes described by V. Prusáková (2010a, p.
20-21) who refers to J. Krajcarová (2004). For example, these
mistakes are non-differentiating between the wish and the need,
the tendency to evaluate more the past needs than the future
needs, the inability to
promote the system approach to the
education, the assumption that everything is possible with the
education or, vice versa, the assumption that it is necessary to
educate only when there have been found out some
shortcomings.
2 Research of the educational needs of seniors in the facilities
of social services
2.1 The project of the research
Regarding the fact that we offer only the selected results of our
research in the submitted work, we mention just the following
related research questions which we asked at the beginning of
our research: 1) Does any statistically important relationship
exist between the achieved education of institutionalized seniors
and their need to further educate themselves? 2) Does any
statistically important relationship exist between the satisfaction
of institutionalized seniors with their own life and their need to
further educate themselves? From the mentioned research
problems there arose the following aims: 1) To find out whether
there exists any statistically important relationship exist between
the achieved education of institutionalized seniors and their need
to further educate themselves. 2) To find out whether there exists
any statistically important relationship exist between the
satisfaction of institutionalized seniors with their own life and
their need to further educate themselves.
The selection of respondents for our research was intentional
because we centred exclusively on the clients of a facility for
seniors (§ 35 Law No. 448/2008 about Social Services with
subsequent amendments), and it was consequently accessible.
The total number of respondents was 259, there were 81 men
and 178 women from all the regions of Slovakia except Trnava
region. 58,68% of respondents were in the life phase of the old
age (75-89 years), they were followed by the respondents
(28,58%) in the phase of the so-called older age (60-74 years)
and subsequently there were respondents (7,72%) who we
already consider to be long-living (90+ years) and the smallest
group was formed by the respondents aged 45-59 years (5,01%).
The mentioned age structure is based on the periodization of the
parts of the adult age and all the senior age according to WHO
(Čornaničová, 1998, Balogová, 2005).
In order to acquire new empirical data we used a non-
standardized questionnaire. The administration of the
questionnaire in the facilities was carried out personally by the
author/researcher (3 facilities), by the Slovak Post Company (1
facility), colleagues of the author/researcher (2 facilities) and by
a family member of the author/researcher (1 facility) in the time
period of July - September 2013. The acquired data were
evaluated by the methods of the mathematical statistics and
logical operations. More detailed findings resulting from this
research are presented in his monographic work (Határ, 2014).
2.2 The analysis of the research results
Quite a big attention has currently been paid to the research of
senior education in Slovakia and abroad as well. In spite of this
fact, the education of seniors in the facilities of social services
still remains a marginal and almost unknown area which is being
studied mainly in our works. We offer partial results of our
research of senior education in the facilities for seniors (i.e. the
former retirement homes for elderly people) in the submitted
study.
One of the indicators which we put in the relationship with the
need of seniors to educate themselves was their highest achieved
education. We divided the respondents into two groups in the
following way: 1) seniors with academic education (6,18%) and
secondary education with the school-leaving exam (28,19%)
and 2) seniors with secondary education without the school-
leaving exam (26,64%), basic education (36,29%) and without
education (2,70%). These groups were mutually compared by us.
The eighth question was aimed on the need of senior clients to
further educate themselves. We found out that only 30,89%
respondents felt this need. There exist several reasons why the
institutionalized seniors were not interested in further education.
On one side, the reason lies in health problems and other
limitations derived from them which play a decisive if not
primary role or there are certain prejudices which are based on
the incorrect perception of education only as an obligatory task
of young people. The proper setting of the system of residential
care often leads the staff, clients and their family members to the
conviction that only the health and nursing care connected with
satisfying of the physiological needs are the most important
things which a senior needs in this phase of life and in these
conditions. 65,25% of respondents did not feel the need to
further educate themselves and 3,86% of seniors did not answer
this question. It was also evident from the research that the
health condition (i.e. the health problems) and the age of clients
(i.e. the old age) are the key factors which influence their need to
further educate themselves.
Z. Palán (1997, p. 128) mentions that there exists a narrow
correlation between the achieved level of education and
preparation for the profession and the need to further education.
Therefore, in the first hypothesis we made the assumption that
the level of achieved education of the institutionalized seniors is
statistically significantly related to their need to further educate
themselves.
Table. 1: Relationship between the achieved education and the
need of seniors to further educate themselves
chi-squared testing
statistics
p-value of the test’s
importance
test’s
importance
17,7692
0,0001
++
Source: Author’s own research
It was proved with the statistical testing that the level of
achieved education (between two compared groups) of
institutionalized seniors is statistically significantly related to
their need to further educate themselves (more than surface of
importance 0,01) and on this basis we accept the formulated
hypothesis.
We suppose that seniors with a higher level of education where,
in the past, belonged the secondary education with a school-
leaving exam as well, perceive the further education more as a
need in itself than a tool for solving individual problems or a
process of satisfying other needs of a senior as also V. Prusáková
(2010a, p. 25) mentions in her work. We assume that not all
seniors, who achieved only lower or no education, did not have a
real potential or aspiration to educate themselves in the past.
However, from the practice we know that the possibility of
education in the past was not such a usual matter as it is now.
Therefore the current need of further education of the
institutionalized seniors with a lower level of education can be
influenced also by their (un)experience with education in their
young age. Functions of education of adults (from the point of
view of the relationship to the school education) can be applied
to both compared groups of respondents. These functions are
described by G. Porubská and
Ľ. Ďurdiak (2005, p. 100), and
they are one’s own continuing functions (they are related to the
satisfying of the intellectual needs of the senior, exceeding the
programme of the school, they are usually connected with the
participation in the public activities, with the solving of personal
and other problems etc.) and the substitutional function (it is
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