ATTITUDE AND WILLINGNESS TO WORK WITH ELDERLY PEOPLE AMONG SOCIAL WORK AND COUNSELING STUDENTS IN A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Counseling and social work students have higher chances to work with elderly people once they complete their studies. Purpose: Therefore, the current study aimed to measure the attitude towards and willingness to work with the elderly among counseling and social work students in Malaysia. Methods: The study utilized 283 undergraduate students (60 males and 213 females with mean age of 24.5) from the counseling and social work programs as study participants. The Kogan’s Attitudes Toward Older People Scale (KAOP) and the Willingness to Work with Elderly Scale (WWES) were employed as the study’s instruments to measure the participants’ attitude towards and willingness to work with the elderly respectively. Result: The study findings indicated that 75.2 percent of the participants exhibited a positive attitude towards working with the elderly. The study also established that there was a positive correlation between attitude towards and willingness to work with the elderly, with a more positive attitude being associated with willingness to work with the elderly. Furthermore, the study results indicated that the higher the age, the more positive attitude to work with the elderly, as older participants (above 25 years) showed more willingness to work with the elderly than younger participants (below 25 years). Conclusions: The study concludes that a positive attitude towards the elderly plays a significant role in students' lives, as they may work with the elderly upon completion of their studies, and a positive attitude towards the elderly can be developed in the social work and counseling students through their study curriculums.