Neuropsychological and affective assessment of teachers over 50 years old before and after an ICT-focused training program

Abstract

The aging of the population raises several social and health related issues and is particularly high in Europe, where policies promoting Active Aging are being pursued. In Education, the aging of the teaching workforce poses significant challenges to the profession. The REKINDLE+50 project developed a training program on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) use for teachers with the parallel intent of promoting the abilities and motivation of teachers over 50 years old. Here we report on the pre- and post-test assessment of neuropsychological abilities (“cool” and “hot” executive functions), self-reported affective functioning and job satisfaction. We found that the training program was associated with increased satisfaction with the nature of the teachers’ work and with material working conditions. There were no significant changes in neuropsychological nor affective measures before and after the program. We also found that job satisfaction was positively associated with “hot” executive functions and negatively linked to affective symptoms (sub-clinical anxiety and depression). These findings, although tentative, suggest that the training program had a positive impact on teacher job satisfaction, and may have potential implications for the promotion of active aging in teachers. Overall, the aging of teachers remains a challenge for the future. The policies for promoting Active Aging provide a strategic outlook on how to tackle this issue, but a more detailed understanding of age-related cognitive and affective changes is likely required to devise effective measures.