Validity of retrospective time-use reports in old age

✍ Scribed by Petra L. Klumb; Margret M. Baltes

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 124 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0888-4080
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199912)13:6<527::aid-acp614>3.0.co;2-1

✦ Synopsis

In a sample of N 83 participants aged between 72 and 97, we assessed the accuracy of time budgets originating from the Yesterday Interview (YI; by means of comparison with in-situ assessments based on the Experience-Sampling Method (ESM; e.g. . We examined convergent and discriminant correlation patterns from indices of activity participation, location, company, and mood collected via both methods. The correspondence between the two methods appeared acceptable. Furthermore, we explored whether (a) length of the retention interval, (b) congruence with pre-existing knowledge, and (c) congruence of the locations of encoding and retrieval accounted for (in)accuracy of recall. We also analysed the degree to which age and cognitive functioning explained performance dierences. While we found discrepancies between YI and ESM to be hardly attributable to context eects or dierences in cognitive functioning, there was an age eect. Finally, the sensitivity of the two methods to detect dierences between groups was found to be largely equivalent but hardly suciently convergent.