Principles and Practices in the Gerontology Instruction Leading to the Texas Basic Certificate in Gerontology

Are guidelines or principles developed for formal academic gerontology programs appropriate for use in gerontology instruction offered for continuing education unit (CEU) credit? The principles and practices of the Texas Basic Certificate in Gerontology courses offered by the Texas Gerontological Consortium for Continuing Education (TGCCE) are identified. Survey principles were adapted from a chapter in the second edition of Standards and Guidelines for Gerontology Programs (Rich, Connelly, & Douglass, 1990), a publication of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. TGCCE institutional representatives rated the importance of the survey principles and the degree to which they implemented them in their institutions. Respondents overwhelmingly approved the gerontology principles in the study, deeming them to be appropriate for TGCCE instruction. After a case study identified instructional practices at an active TGCCE institution, respondents compared their implementation of principles with that at the case study site. Institutions were found to be actively implementing principles and reported both exemplary practices and problems in practice.