Everyday Optimal Competence in Later Life: Conception and Empirical Investigation

Everyday Optimal Competence (EOC) refers to the high-level expertise that older adults develop through years of practice and informal learning in activities that bring meaning and structure to their daily lives. Across four studies involving over 900 adults (aged 53–90) recruited in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, we aimed to (a) investigate the perceived value of everyday optimal competence in later life, (b) develop the EOCS, and (c) establish its psychometric properties, including its factor structure, validity, and temporal stability. Study 1 used qualitative interviews, which confirmed that participants found the EOC concept to be a useful and personally relevant framework to describing their daily expertise. Study 2 focused on initial scale development, with exploratory factor analysis supporting a four-factor EOCS structure, and preliminary evidence of convergent validity. Through confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance, Study 3 confirmed the 4-factor structure of the scale and its gender and age scalar invariance. It also demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity with conceptually related constructs. Finally, Study 4 confirmed the scale’s temporal stability through six-month test–retest reliability. Overall, the findings support the EOCS as a robust, multidimensional instrument for assessing everyday optimal competence. EOCS provides a new tool to examine engagement in meaningful activities across later life.