Attitudes of women religious before and after participation in a pre-retirement education program

Abstract

This research was designed to examine the relationship between participation in a pre-retirement education program and attitudes towards retirement of women religious ages forty through fifty-nine. A non-randomized sample from among the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio, Texas, was selected, with subsamples from St. Louis and San Antonio. The indices of attitude measurement were a semantic differential technique and The Dugger Pre-Retirement Attitude, Interest, Adjustment Scale. The eleven attitude indices were the following: DEATH GROWING OLD, FUTURE, LEISURE, MYSELF, PEOPLE, RETIREMENT, SECOND CAREERS, SPIRITUAL RENEWAL, YOUTH, and SELF-ESTEEM INDEX. The data from the semantic differential were analyzed by a series of independent t tests, and paired t tests were used to analyze The Dugger Pre-Retirement Attitude, Interest, Adjustment Scale. The following concepts showed significant differences on the semantic differential instrument: DEATH, GROWING OLD, RETIREMENT, and SECOND CAREERS. The SELF-ESTEEM INDEX on The Dugger Pre-Retirement Attitude, Interest, Adjustment Scale also showed significant differences. It was concluded that participation in a pre-retirement education program, specifically, Planning and the Third Age Especially for Women Religious, developed and published by the Gerontology Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, changed some attitudes towards retirement..