H W Wahl, V Heyl, O Schilling
The German Centre for Research on Ageing, Department of Social and Environmental Gerontology, Heidelberg, Germany
The everyday competence model proposed by Margret Baltes and colleagues is used in this secondary data analysis as a theoretical framework to distinguish between basic and expanded outdoor behavioral competence (BaCoOut versus ExCoOut). While the former includes activities such as basic shopping or using public transport systems, the latter includes leisure activities such as visiting friends or doing gardening. In particular, the differential role of vision and outdoor motivation-related variables (such as outgoingness) for the prediction of both of these outdoor behavioral components is explored with normally aging individuals. Results are based on a sample of N=404 elders living in private households in two rural regions in Germany, stratified by age (55-74: mean visual acuity 20/40, 75+: mean visual acuity 20/50) and sex. The main finding of a structural equation approach based on our hypothesized model is that visual functioning and physical mobility capacity, but not outdoor motivation-related variables play a significant role in order to predict BaCoOut, while the reverse is true for ExCoOut. These results underline, on the one hand, the critical role of vision to better understand outdoor mobility. On the other hand, they point to the need for a complex model including a variety of interacting constructs, in which visual functioning is only one, albeit important variable.
Return to the ISLRR.ORG Home Page
