Validity of retrospective time-use reports in old age

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; Moss and Lawton, 1982) by means of comparison with in-situ assessments based on the Experience-Sampling Method (ESM; e.g. Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987). 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 differences. While we found discrepancies between YI and ESM to be hardly attributable to context effects or differences in cognitive functioning, there was an age effect. Finally, the sensitivity of the two methods to detect differences between groups was found to be largely equivalent but hardly sufficiently convergent. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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