Published:October 30, 2018 | By Sydney Valentino
Kelsey Harvey, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Health, Aging & Society at McMaster University (supervisor Dr. Meredith Griffin), delivered a talk on her work entitled:
“How Are We Teaching Older Adult Exercisers?: A Qualitative Study of Fitness Instruction”
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Through observations, interviews, and textual analyses, Kelsey’s research-in-progress aims to answer the question: What educational role do exercise instructors for older adults play, and how might this affect the inclusivity/exclusivity of the social exercise environment?
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A scoping review revealed that fitness instructors: are key to fostering social cohesion, serve as cultural intermediaries between fitness culture and exercisers, should possess leadership and interpersonal skills, should possess both exercise and gerontological competence, and are educators.
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Educational skills are recognized as an important skill that exercise instructors should possess, but scant, empirical attention has been paid to this topic.
Please feel free to contact Kelsey Harvey (harvek1@mcmaster.ca) if you have any questions or would like to discuss future work.
This blog post was first published by the MIRA Trainee Network. Read the ​original article.​
