need for comfort, etc. are at a developmental stage that is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the young people for whom most teaching strategies were developed. Finally, John closes the first part of the book with a section wherein she defines key terms used in her book. Specifically, she defines the terms "Geragogy", "Elderly", and "Theory".
Evaluation. This section of the book is well organized and lucidly written. Providing definitions of key terms is especially helpful in terms of helping the reader to better understand both John's focus and her intent; more books should provide such sections. However, the definitions might have been maximally helpful if provided at the beginning rather than the end of the chapter. Also, John's rationale for teaching the elderly, while comprehensive, sometimes appears to be "stretching it"; in other words, her arguments for the personal contributions education affords the elderly are far more convincing than her arguments for the societal contributions.
In this chapter, John provides a brief overview of motivational theory and research, followed by a delineation of learning goals salient to elderly populations. She notes that education can assist people to satisfy motivational needs for feelings of being independent, being safe and having psychological needs met, feeling useful and productive, having curiosity satisfied, and satisfying their needs for warmth and approval. The chapter also presents a discussion of various cognitive processes in the elderly and then delineates a number of behaviors that might be expected, on the basis of material covered in the discussion, in instructional efforts with elderly populations whose thinking skills have aspects peculiar to the aging process.
Evaluation. This chapter was far less organized than the previous section of the book. The review of motivation was, at best, sketchy; and the citation of studies examining "rat" p...