Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine whether traditional students and adult learners adjusted differently to college life based on their problem-solving competence, self-esteem, and intrinsic motivation. To do so, we conducted latent profile and cross-tabulation analyses. The participants were 215 traditional students and 145 adult learners. The major results were as follows. First, the groups had similar levels of self-esteem but traditional students adjusted better to college life and had greater problem-solving competence than adult learners. Second, adult learners had higher intrinsic motivation levels than traditional students. Third, college life adaptation styles were classified as either high belief-low motivation or low belief-high motivation with most traditional students belonging to the former type and most adult learners belonging to the latter, indicating that traditional students and adult learners have different college life adaptation styles. These results suggests that different support system should be offered to each group.