Meaningful Mobility

Mobility or physical movement contributes to health and well-being in later life and is a key issue in gerontological research. Most studies have focused on the contribution of outdoor mobility to active ageing, but physical and cognitive impairments restrict the mobility of many older adults. Meaningful Mobility will take a more comprehensive approach than previous research. It will be the first to connect the capability approach to mobility research to study diversity in movement within and between places by healthy and impaired older adults. The Meaningful Mobility project emphasizes the diversity in mobility of older adults by investigating three research gaps: (1) mobility of impaired older adults, (2) indoor mobility in later life and (3) mobility of older adults in different socio-cultural settings. 

In accordance with the mixed-methods design, participant recruitment will be driven by a stratified purposive sampling rationale that is common in mixed-methods research (Teddlie & Yu, 2007). The project aims to generate comprehensive insights at the individual level, and not to achieve statistical representation. The sample size is small enough to enable an in-depth grounded visualization of the data generated by the different methods (Knigge & Cope, 2006). Grounded visualization was developed to integrate diverse forms of data to uncover the multiple meanings associated with a topic and to contribute to theory building.