The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the participation motivation of female learners receiving lifelong education on their own subjective quality of life such as satisfaction and happiness. It's specifically meant to investigate whet...
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the participation motivation of female learners receiving lifelong education on their own subjective quality of life such as satisfaction and happiness. It's specifically meant to investigate whether receiving lifelong education affected the quality of life of women with different motivations involving family life, interpersonal relationship, health, happiness, confidence, autonomy and self-esteem in an attempt to provide information on how to stir up the participation of female learners in lifelong education to change their lives, their needs for education, and the improvement of their quality of life. The findings of the study about the research questions were as follows:
First, learning-oriented participation motivation was most dominant among the female learners investigated, which denoted that they received lifelong education because they liked learning itself. As for connections between learning motivation and general characteristics, target-oriented participation motivation was more prevailing among the younger women, especially those under the age of 40, than the older women who were in their 50s and up. And the working women were more target-oriented than the stay-at-home homemakers. It indicated that the younger and working women were more target-oriented in terms of lifelong education. When they were categorized into clusters by participation motivation, there appeared three different sorts of groups. One was more learning/ activity-oriented and less target-oriented. Another was more activity- oriented and less learning-oriented. The third was more learning/target-oriented and less activity-oriented. As a result of analyzing whether their general characteristics made any differences, there were differences in their participation motivation according to marital status. The single women received lifelong education as they liked to meet new people or do some activities, whereas the married women did that to do activities, to attain their goal or to learn more.
Second, as for links between the type of participation motivation and change in the quality of life, the largest number of the women who showed positive changes in all the family life, physical/emotional aspects, social/leisure activities, happiness, autonomy and self-esteem were more learning/activity-oriented and less target-oriented, and the smallest number of those women who underwent the changes were more activity-oriented and less learning-oriented.
Third, concerning changes in the quality of life after receiving lifelong education, they went through the most positive changes in happiness, autonomy and self-esteem, and the second most positive changes were found in physical/emotional aspect and social/leisure activities. By monthly mean family income, the women whose monthly mean family income was three million won or more felt there were more positive changes in their family lives than the others whose monthly mean family income was less than three million won. In terms of changes in family life, physical. emotional aspect, social/leisure activities, happiness, autonomy and self-esteem, the female learners who were more satisfied with their lives underwent more positive changes in the quality of life after they received lifelong education.
Thus, the female learners who received lifelong education were learning-oriented the most, which indicated that they received that education for learning itself, but lifelong education exerted a positive influence on their quality of life, no matter what motivated them to receive that education.