Assignment 13: Review the semester research questions

1.     What human population did you research and why?

I am researching how elderly people the United States are treated by the rest of the country.

2.     Before doing research on this population, what did you assume about them?  Why?  Where did you hear that information from?

Before I started this research I assumed that the youth of today have little to no respect for the elderly, that they do not hold then in very high regard. I heard that information from the media and from what I see everyday when working in the nursing home. 

3.     What did you find out from your background research to be true? 

I have found that most stereotypes concerning old people are negative and while younger people have some respect for the elderly, they do not want to be around them because of their bias's they have gotten from the media and also from their own apprehensiveness about growing old.

4.     What are some of the challenges that this group faces in mainstream society?

They are under represented in the media and most depictions of them in the media are negative.  Also many people assume that they are just old, cranky, senile people, who can not make their own decisions anymore and who just belong in the nursing home where no one can see them deteriorate. Many people stick their relatives in a nursing home when they get old so that some one else can take care of them whereas in many other cultures it is considered an honor to be with the elderly and to learn from them in their last years.

5.     What type of research studies have been done on this population to seek an answer to ONE of those challenges (the one that you consider to be the biggest challenge)?

There are a lot of case studies that professionals have done to try to determine where many peoples bias's about old people come from, and a few have found that much bias comes from about people's own fear of growing old and death.

6.     What are the challenges that people have in doing library research AND original research on this human population?
Removing their own opinions from their research. Also finding information that is on how the elderly are treated or viewed, not information on medical treatments for them.

7.     After learning a little bit more about your human population, what was the research question that you generated on them?  Show the research strategy that you used to find answer(s) to this question, as well as the best resource you found which answers this question.
How are the elderly viewed in the United States?  I typed a search string into Academic Search Premier and then found a result that was the closest to what I was looking for then I took the keywords from the results and made a new search string using my new keywords.

8.     Who are some of the organizations that educate people about this human population, if people would like further information about them?  Are any of these organizations led/staffed by people from that organization itself? 
A lot the organizations are nursing homes and Universities, most of the research is done by medical professionals, psychologists, and university professors.