Developmental Characters And Influential Factors Of The Elder’ Sability Of Everyday Problem Solving On The Observed Tasks

By the use of the “Performance-based assessment on the Chinese elders’ ability of everydayproblem solving based on the observed task of daily living”, this study selected the aging of60-84as the sample to investigate the developmental characters of the elders’ ability of solving theeveryday problems on the whole and four subscales (age characters and individual differences);Consider the relation between the elders’ ability of solving the everyday problems and somepotentially influential factors such as gender, culture levels, pension modes, occupation, familymembers, ages and using the experience differences; Compare the results on this performance-based assessment with the elders’ everyday cognitive developmental model from the non-performance-based assessment.The results showed: the elders’ ability of solving the everyday problems on the performance-based assessment decline significantly from70; there are different development path in activitiesof different areas of the ability of solving the everyday problems that elders’ ability declinesignificantly from70in taking medicine, using electrical appliances and financial managementand decline significantly from75in using telephone; the elders’ ability of solving the everydayproblems on the performance-based assessment shows a certain amount of individual differenceson the whole and four subscales separately that change in group four (age from70to79) and groupfive (age from80to84) are bigger than other three before; there are different amplitude ofvariation in activities of different areas that the change of individual differences in using financialmanagement is smaller with age; Exclude gender only, culture levels, pension modes, occupation,family members, ages and using the experience differences are influential factors of the elders’ability of solving the everyday problems, Compared with paper-pencil test and self-report method,performance-based assessment is a better assessment tool of ecological validity measuring elders’ability of solving the everyday problems, and the elders’ developmental model in everydayproblem solving via performance-based assessment is more reliable.